385- 



BKIGHT'S 



SINGLE STEM, DWARF AND RENEWAL 



SYSTEM OF 



GRAPE CULTURE. 



ADAPTED TO THE VINEYARD, THE GRAPERY, AND 

THE FRUITING OF VINES IN POTS, ON 

TRELLISES, ARBORS, ETC. 



"Things which bring in money, will be sure to make their 
own way." 

— Leibig cm Modern Agriculture. 

1 




BY WILLIAM BRIGHT, 




Logan Nursery, Philadelphia. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 



NEW YORK: 

C. M. SAXTON, BARKER & CO. 
1861. 



t 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, 

BY WILLIAM BRIGHT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Eastern Dietriet 
of Pennsylvania. 



PILE k M'ELROY, PRINTERS. 



\ 



^ 5 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The wide-spread interest which this little Treatise on 
Grape Culture has excited, throughout the United States, 
it will readily be supposed, is most gratifying to the 
author. Not only has a large edition been speedily dis- 
posed of, but the system of culture which we have ad- 
vocated has been adopted by hundreds of grape-growers 
in all parts of the country ; and the various methods of 
management presented, have received the unqualified 
sanction of the most scientific, as well as practical cul- 
tivators, in Europe and America. Another year of ex- 
perience and study, has served to strengthen and confirm 
our confidence in the merits of the system, and suggest- 
ed some improvements in the minor details of practice, 
which we now present to the public in the second 
part of this edition. 

Our system has been earnestly assailed by various 
writers, who have endeavored chiefly to show, not that 
the system is an imperfect or useless one, but that it is 
not new. We have frequently replied to these attacks, 
through the medium of the Horticultural journals, and 
we think we have proved that the system, in its general 
plan of culture, is new, and that it has never been prac- 
tised by grape-growers, as a system, either in England 
or America. We think it must also be granted, that 

cm) 



[ y PREFACE. 

we have added to our specific system of culture, many 
new and useful suggestions, in respect to planting, prun- 
ing, constructing viae borders, the control of moisture, 
making composts, the use of fertilizers, &c. It is a sig- 
nificant, and to us a very gratifying fact, that the entire 
practice in grape culture, everywhere, is rapidly tending 
towards the very points which we at first presented to 
the public, in respect, particularly, to the importance of 
inside borders, with some degree of bottom heat, and to 
the usefulness of frequent renewals of the vine rods, 
by cutting back, to get new and vigorous wood. 

The history of the world, in all ages, has shown how 
difficult it is to introduce into general use any new sys- 
tem or principle, in science or practical labor. Even if 
the new proposition is based upon sound principles, and 
is of the highest value to mankind, still it requires on 
the part of its inventor, to gain for it any general ac- 
ceptance, a large measure of the three great forces, — 
time, faith, energy ; in other words, the pluck to 
" labor and to wait/' in spite of all obstacles. Our 
powers of endurance, in this respect, we confess, have 
not been so severely taxed as we expected. Our views 
have, in the main, met with a very cordial reception, 
and we look for their general adoption, with much con- 
fidence. If we shall succeed in making a great and 
universal improvement in grape culture, we will not 
conceal the fact that it will be to us a source of pride 
and pleasure, to be of so much service to our fellow 
men. 



npt 0» mM\m 



The Single Stem, Dwarf and Eenewal 
System of Grape Culture. 

We presume every grape-grower has felt the want of 
some simple, definite and efficient system of managing 
the vine, especially in the vineyard, and upon small 
arbors and trellises. After all the talk about grape 
culture, no one that we know of has any established 
method of pruning and training the vine, which ma> 
be pronounced a simple, complete and satisfactory sya 
tem. The German method, as practised at Cincinnati, 
it is admitted, is not well adapted to the production of 
perfect table grapes; and the Thomery system, advo- 
cated by Dr. C. W. Grant, though elegant and success- 
ful on high trellises, is not adapted to vines with loner 
joints, nor to general vineyard culture. To allow vines 
to range almost unrestrained over tall trees and immense 
arbors, is by many considered the perfection of wisdom, 
while it is literally a great system with no system at all. 

(5) 



6 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

All vines running to a great height, must of necessity 
have an immense length of barren cane in proportion 
to the fruiting wood, and this barrenness is yearly in- 
creasing. The best qualities of our native grapes, we 
feel convinced, can never be developed, unless a better 
method of pruning and training be adopted by grape 
growers; and with the hope of aiding the accomplish- 
ment of this object, we here present our system of cul- 
ture, which, if not the best that can be devised, is, we 
believe, far superior to any system at present in use in 
the United States. 

The " dwarf and renewal system," as we style it, 
though not entirely original with the writer, is the re- 
sult of long experience in the culture of the vine, and 
embodies some methods of managing the grape, of great 
yalue, which are not generally known or practised by 
other cultivators. 

The writer believes that his system is beyond all 
question the best that can be adopted for grape culture, 
in America, in all cases. It is, in the main, a method 
of fruiting the vine on a single, short cane, with very 
short lateral branches, — growing new wood from the 
main stem one year, and fruiting it the next; dwarfing 
the vine by a definite rule of stopping and pruning, and 
renewing the entire wood of the vine, (except a small 
portion of the main stem,) every other year. 

This system possesses many important advantages 
over any other method of culture, which will become 
apparent after proper examination or trial. 



BRIGIIT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 7 

Its chief merit is, that it concentrates the entire 
strength of the vine roots upon a small quantity of 
young, vigorous wood, and produces larger and finer 
bunches of grapes than can be obtained by any other 
process. As to quantity of crop, it is equal, if not 
superior, to any other system of culture. Indeed, it is 
believed, that in the vineyard or elsewhere, this system 
will produce a larger crop of grapes than can be obtain- 
ed from the same extent of soil upon long canes, under 
any of the ordinary methods of pruning. 

The vines grown according to this system are more 
perfectly under control than when allowed to ramble 
over long ranges of wire or trellises ; they are more 
easily trained and tied up, or laid down in winter ; they 
can be kept in a more healthy and vigorous condition ; 
and when they decline in health or fruiting capacity, 
any entire vine may be readily renewed by layering, 
thus producing a new set of roots near the surface of 
the ground, without essentially interfering with the 
general product of the vineyard. 

The common idea is, that the Isabella, Catawba, and 
other native American vines, must be allowed to ramble 
almost at will; it is contended that their wild, natural 
character demands this treatment, and that any attempt 
to cut them back severely, will injure their health and 
fruitfulness. This idea may be correct, as applied 
to any of the common methods of pruning, but it is not 
correct when considered in relation to the method of 
culture advocated in this work. It may be improper 



8 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

to prune severely an old vine, with a long cane, but' 
such is not our system. "We grow an entire vine one 
season, and fruit it the next ; we do not cut hack se- 
verely an old vine already grown. The vine under this 
system is allowed to expend its whole strength, wild 
rambling nature and all, during one season, in the pro- 
duction of a new and perfect cane ; the next season it is 
permitted to produce a full crop of fruit, as full and as 
heavy as its wood and roots are able to perfect. If this 
is not work enough for the roots, as much work, in fact, 
as any vine is called upon to perform, then we have 
made a great mistake in our estimate of the matter. 

The opponents of dwarf culture declare that this sys- 
tem may answer for foreign grapes in pots, but will not 
answer for the Isabella, and other hardy native grapes; 
this opinion being based upon the idea that the native 
grapes, with their wild character, are more free in 
growth than the foreign vines. But this latter opinion 
is positively incorrect. It is not true that the native 
grapes are more vigorous or free in growth than the 
foreign kinds, as every grape-grower, who has ever cul- 
tivated the foreign kinds under glass, must admit. The 
whole theory upon which the dwarf culture of native 
grapes is opposed, is founded in error. The foreign 
vines are in fact vastly more free in growth, more wild, 
if you please, than the Isabella, or any other native ; 
vet the foreign vines endure the dwarfing process in pot 
culture, not only without injury, but with the highest 
degree of success. The same is true of the Isabella and 



BRIGHT ON GRATE CULTURE. 9 

other native vines. We have tried them in pots, on 
arbors and trellises, and in the vineyard, on our system, 
and have found the fears of grape-growers, as to the in- 
jurious effects of dwarfing, entirely without foundation. 

Upon our system, in fact, the free flow of sap from 
the roots is not checked or restrained j it finds full and 
free outlet in the formation of wood, foliage and fruit, 
— as full and free as if permitted to run to the terminal 
points of a vine fifty feet long. We give the roots work 
enough to do, and they are never " made sick with ex- 
cess of sap," as it is feared they may be, when the idea 
of dwarf culture is suggested. We know, by experi- 
ence, the best of teachers, that what we say is true; and 
we can show the evidence of our knowledge and expe- 
rience, in thrifty vines and large crops of the finest 
bunches of native grapes, grown upon the dwarf renewal 
system, in the season of fruit, to any one who may 
choose to examine them. 

The truth is, that our dwarf renewal system of vine 
culture is perfectly adapted to native grapes, as well as 
to the foreign kinds ; it most perfectly meets the wants 
of grape-growers in the United States, in graperies and 
vineyards, and on arbors and trellises; and will afford 
every person who practises it, the highest amount of 
pleasure and profit. 

We have purposely described the system of pruning, 
here advocated, in detail, in several sections of this 
work, as adapted to the cold grapery, vineyard, &c, 
preferring to make some repetition, rather than to fail 



10 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

of being understood by readers of different classes, who 
may wish to employ this system in the various kinds of 
culture. 

The method of " stopping," which we have pre- 
scribed, is peculiarly our own, being the result of our 
personal experience and practice in pot vine culture ; 
and the detached and divided border for the vinery, is 
also quite original with us. We believe that we have 
been the first to publish any suggestion of such a bor- 
der, and the first to construct a house on this plan. 

We also advocate, more strictly and emphatically than 
any other writer that we know of, shallow and mode- 
rately rich borders, very shallow planting, surface ma- 
nuring and heavy mulching, as necessary to success in 
grape culture. 

The alternate renewal plan, which we recommend, 
has never before, we believe, been presented to the pub- 
lic, or practised in the vineyard, as a distinct and defi- 
nite system, and may therefore be claimed as original. 

Our method of top-dressing and manuring, and the 
combination of fertilizers employed, are, we believe, in 
many respects new ; and we feel assured that they are 
based upon scientific principles, which will bear the 
test of investigation and practical trial. 

This work was originally intended to be simply a 
hand-book of instruction in the management of the 
grape vine in pots, and the system we advocate has 
chiefly grown out of our experience in that kind of cul- 
ture; we shall therefore first treat of the propagation 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 11 

and fruiting of vine in pots. What follows, on the 
vineyard and grapery, we have been induced to add at 
the earnest request of several friends, who think as we 
do, that our system is well adapted to general use, and 
ought to be made public. We feel well assured that 
no one who may try this method of pruning will have 
any cause to regret it. 



Culture of the Grape Vine in Pots. 






The art of growing and fruiting the grape vine in 
pots, forms one of the most interesting, elegant, and 
profitable branches of modern horticulture. When well 
understood, the culture of the vine in this way will be 
found to be as simple and as easy as in the border, and 
even better suited to the circumstances and wants of 
numerous amateurs and gardeners. 

Anybody who has a small forcing-house, may produce 
the best foreign grapes in pots in perfection, without 
the costly preparations of the vinery, and with very lit- 
tle trouble. If the grape, when fruited, is an elegant 
object in the vinery, it is much more so in the pot ; and 
when managed with skill, the mass of splendid fruit 
which" a single cane less than three feet in height is 
capable of producing, cannot fail to excite the admira- 
tion of every beholder. 

A great many persons who have small green-houses, 
would like to raise grapes. To such, pot-culture offers 
peculiar advantages. The work of growing the vines 
can be easily and cheaply done by themselves or their 
gardeners, and the plants got ready in any number, (as 

(i2) 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. IB 

will be horeafter described,) and brought forward, say 
a dozen or two at a time, without interfering with the 
other plants, and fruited as soon as in a regular hot- 
house, and in great abundance and perfection. 

For early forcing, the pot vine is exceedingly conve- 
nient. The owner of a vinery may desire a few early 
grapes, but it may be impossible or undesirable to heat 
the border early in the season, and go into general 
forcing. In such cases, with the control easily exer- 
cised over the pot vines, we may start them in the hot- 
house in the month of March, and after the fruit is set, 
ripen in the cold vinery, and cut the fruit in June or 
July. 

There is great economy of space in pot-culture, which 
commends it especially to persons who have hot-houses 
of limited extent. Five hundred square feet of glass 
will ripen about two hundred and fifty pounds of grapes, 
in a common house, with border culture. In pots, five 
hundred pounds, at least, may be obtained under the 
same surface of glass, and the period of ripening may 
be more easily hastened or retarded ; thus in a single 
house greatly extending the fruit season. 

G-rapes in pots may also be kept for three or four 
months upon the vines, after they are ripened, by re- 
moving the pots to a cool, dry, airy room — even in the 
parlor — thus presenting all the merit of a beautiful 
house plant, as an object of interest, as well as a deli- 
cious source of gratification to the palate. West's St. 
Peter's, Muscat, and several other late grapes, ripened 



14 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

in pots on the 1st of October, will keep on the vines, in 
a cool, dry, airy room, till the 1st of February or March. 

As an ornament to the dinner table, or for decorating 
a room for evening parties, there is no production of 
the hot-house more truly magnificent in all respects, 
than a pot vine fully and properly developed, bearing 
six or seven bunches of the finest grapes, as they may 
be grown by proper dwarf culture, such as we shall de- 
scribe in this work. 

The early fruiting of dwarf pot vines is another ad- 
vantage greatly in their favor, as compared with com- 
mon vines. Vines are so easily produced in pots, that 
it is a matter of little consideration if you fruit them 
early, at the expense of the existence of the vine, while 
in the border you would be more careful to create a 
strong cane before permitting it to fruit. Vines may 
be struck from the eye, and forced into perfect and 
abundant fruiting in eighteen months. You may strike 
vines from the eye in March, and fruit them in pots 
the second season, moderately, without serious injury to 
them. 

Properly and moderately fruited, the pot vine is .not 
destroyed, as many persons suppose, in one or two sea- 
sons, but may be shifted from small to larger pots, 
root-pruned, and again placed in smaller pots, for years, 
the proper nutriment for growing wood and perfecting 
fruit being added to the soil at each change of pots, 
and given in solution while bearing. A much greater 
variety of grapes may be grown together in pots in the 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 15 

same house, than by the common method in borders. 
When the roots of vines run together, it is well known 
that the strong-growing sorts are apt to injure and 
drive out the weaker kinds, as for instance, the strong- 
growing White Nice, Syrian, or Buel, planted in a bor- 
der by the side of the Black Prince, or the Dutch Sweet 
Water, will so seriously check the growth of the latter, 
that perfect fruiting is almost impossible. With vines 
in pots no such accident can happen. Each plant is 
perfectly independent of every other, and they may be 
placed side by side without injury. 

It will be here understood that we are speaking of 
true and exclusive pot vine culture — not that partial or 
mixed system which permits the roots of the vine to 
extend from the pots into a border. 

In pot culture, grapes which it is impossible to ripen 
in the border without cracking, may be produced in the 
utmost perfection. The Chasselas Musque is a grape 
of this description. The cracking is due to excess of 
moisture in the border, which it is sometimes difficult 
to prevent. But in the pot we have entire control over 
the moisture, and hence perfect grapes can be produced. 

A question which almost every man will ask, in re- 
spect to pot vine culture, is this : " Will it pay ?" We 
answer, most unhesitatingly, it will. We know it will 
pay. We grant that pot vines require more care and 
attention than vines in borders ; but they may be em- 
ployed by many persons who have only small hothouses, 
without interfering with other plants, and without any 



16 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 






great additional expense; large crops of early grapes 
(and late ones too,) may be obtained where none could 
otherwise be grown ; and the return, for the space occu- 
pied and care required, in pecuniary profit and personal 
gratification, will be found highly satisfactory. 

Growing foreign grapes in hothouses is generally 
considered a sort of rich man's luxury. The pot vine 
may, on the contrary, be called the poor man's luxury. 
The grape in borders is generally grown on a man's own 
estate. The pot vine may be called the tenant's grape. 
In pots, the grape may be grown in any sort of hot- 
house, even in a three-light box, by the tenant of the 
humblest cottage ; and when he is suddenly called upon, 
by any circumstance, to remove, he may take his vine 
with him, at any season of the year, and continue its 
culture at his pleasure. 

There are many persons who have much taste for hor- 
ticultural pursuits, and for the culture of grapes in par- 
ticular, not restricted in means, who yet do not find it 
desirable to erect permanent graperies. To such, as 
well as to the really poor man, the pot vine is a most 
desirable acquisition. In city yards, where a green- 
house only ten feet square can be erected, there the 
grape may be grown and fruited in pots as perfectly as 
in the most costly and extensive structures. 

With these advantages of pot vine culture before us, 
we think we may safely say, that when the art of grow- 
ing and fruiting the grape in this way becomes fully 
and generally known, it will be exceedingly popular. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 17 

It is an art which ladies may learn and exercise under 
circumstances well suited to their tastes, and may even 
be made a source of profit, as well as pleasure, by many 
ladies who would not choose to engage in any common 
gainful occupation. To the man of wealth, who has 
extensive hot-houses, it will add to his vines a con- 
venient method of early forcing, and an elegant novelty 
for the parlor or the supper-party; and to the person of 
more limited means, it affords an opportunity to enjoy 
the pleasure of growing the richest grapes, at small ex- 
pense, in the highest perfection. 
2 



Propagation and Culture of Pot Vines. 



STRIKING FROM EYES, AND POTTING., 

To strike from eyes ; select good, strong, well ripened 
wood — the stronger the better — as soon as the vines are 
pruned. Be careful not to let the wood become dry. 
Place the wood in a cool spot, and cover it with damp 
soil or sand. About the first of March, bed each eye 
in plain bar sand, in a shallow box, at an angle of 
about 45°, so as to leave the eye slightly projecting. 
Keep the sand moderately moist, and place the box con- 
taining it in a bottom heat of about 80°, and under a 
solar heat of about 50° to 55°. The eyes will begin to 
break in about a month. Pot off in four inch pots, with 
equal portions of leaf mould, sand and loam. Plunge 
the pots back into the same bottom heat, increasing the 
solar heat to 65° ; and water copiously when the plant 
is becoming established. 



SHIFTING POTS. 



As soon as the pot becomes well filled with roots, s; 
in four weeks, shift the vines to seven inch pots. 

(18) 



BRIGIIT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 19 

In the preparation of the soil for these pots, there is 
an opportunity for the exercise of much scientific skill. 
The common method is, to make a compost of old sod, 
and a little well rotted stable manure, with the addition 
of a small quantity of finely ground bones. The lead- 
ing requirements of the vine, for the formation of roots 
and wood, are carbonaceous loam, alkaline phosphates 
silicate of potash, carbonate of soda and lime, and a 
good proportion of nitrogenous manure. Our method 
of making composts for vine borders, so as to combine 
the requisite iugredients in the proper proportions, will 
be given in another part of this work. 

Proper drainage must of course be provided in the 
pot. Pack the soil firmly about the roots, and give 
water moderately till the pot becomes well filled with 
roots, then water copiously. About the middle of May 
remove the pots to the vinery, and treat them as you 
would any ordinary vine. Ilcmember that the vine is 
a gross feeder, and requires an abundant supply of 
water in sunny weather. 

STOPPING THE FIRST YEAR. 

Pinch off the leader when about two feet high, and 
stop all laterals at two joints. About the first of Sep- 
tember withdraw water gradually, only giving sufficient 
to keep the vine from flagging ) by so doing you will 
have well ripened roots and canes about the first of 
October. The pots may then be placed in a cool, dry 



20 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

cellar or shed, where they will be protected from frost 
and mice — first cutting the canes down to two inches 
This concludes the first year's treatment. 

SECOND YEAR — GROWING CANES FOR EARLY FORCING. 

Pot vines selected for early forcing, should be brought 
into a temperature of 40° to 45°, about the first of Feb- 
ruary. First soak the whole contents of the pot in 
good, moderately strong, clear manure water, setting 
the pot for two hours in a tub partly filled with such a 
solution — the drainage of a barn-yard or manure heap, — 
or prepared by stirring up some well rotted manure in 
water, and dipping off the clear liquid when it has set- 
tled. The decomposition of the manure is hastened, 
and the solution is improved by the addition of a small 
quantity of potash or wood ashes, say half a pound of 
potash or half a peck of ashes to one hundred pounds of 
manure. 

Increase the temperature to the first of March, about 
10°. Water sparingly, merely to keep the soil moist, 
till the vines break shoots two or three inches long, 
which will be about the first of April. 

SHIFTING POTS. 

Now shift the vines from seven to eleven inch pots, 
making slight but well secured drainage, and fill- 
ing the pot with properly prepared soil. Good, turfy, 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 



21 



half rotted sods, or good loam from an old pasture, with 
a handful or two of fine bone dust, or our special ferti- 
lizer, to each pot, and a little well decomposed stable 
manure, makes an excellent compost. Pot firmly, being 
careful not to bruise the roots in pressing down the soil, 
and place in the pot a stroDg stake three feet six inches 
long. 

The temperature of the house may now be increased 
to 60° or 65° at night, and 10° or 15° more by day. 
Give air moderately at the top of the house, and keep 
the walls, floors, and whole house, in clear days, well 
sprinkled with water, so as to secure a very moist atmos- 
phere. 

STOPPING, TO MAKE DWARFS FOR EARLY FORCING. 

By the middle of April, the vines will have made five 
or six inches growth, short-jointed and solid. Pinch off 
the leading shoot about one inch above the fourth eye. 
The three lower leaves will now develope very rapidly, 
and the lateral of the upper eye will make its appear- 
ance. When the upper lateral has grown two joints 
long, pinch it off within one inch of the main cane. 
The main eye will then start. If the three lower eyes 
are not very prominent, let the lateral of the upper eye 
run to three or four joints, in order to allow time for 
the lower eyes to develope their laterals. But when the 
lower eyes are very prominent, and the lower laterals are 
well developed, you may take off entirely the upper lateral. 






22 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 



The leader will start rapidly when the upper lateral 
is removed. As soon as the leader has made a few 
inches growth, pinch back the three lower laterals to 
one joint each. As soon as the leader has made five 
joints, pinch it off as before, and treat the new portion 
of the main cane as we directed for the first portion ; 
that is, encouraging the growth or stopping the laterals 
as required by their condition and progress. 

As soon as the wood begins to turn brown, near the 
roots, showing any indication of ripening, remove all the 
laterals to within one inch of the cane, up to the fourth 
eye. Now leave the cane to run rather freely, occasion- 
ally stopping both cane and laterals, at discretion, accord- 
ing to growth. If you allow the cane to grow too lux- 
uriantly, you will be likely to lose the lower foliage 
before the wood is well ripened, which will be fatal to 
the fruiting of the lower eyes the following season ; and 
an excess of cane, above sixteen eyes, will encumber the 
pot with an excessive quantity of roots. 

By the middle of July, the last stopping will be per- 
formed. About the middle of August, water sparingly; 
only give so much moisture as will keep the vines from 
flagging. In the middle or latter part of September, 
the vines will show indications of going to rest, the 
foliage becoming yellow. About the first of October 
the pots may be placed in a cool cellar, where they will 
get moderate light; keep the soil just moist, admit cool 
air, but protect them from frost. 

When the pots are placed in the cellar, cut down the 



BRIGIIT ON GRATE CULTURE. 23 

vines to two feet, or two feet six inches, still preserving 
the foliage as long as possible. The vines should he cut 
back a month before the foliage is gone, which gives 
the wood plenty of time to heal, so as to prevent bleed- 
ing when started in the spring. 



SECOND YEAR CONTINUED — TREATMENT OF VINES 
FOR LATE CROPS. 

"We will now consider the second year's treatment of 
vines grown for ordinary purposes, say for fruiting from 
the first of July to the first of September. 

Bring these pots out of the cellar about the first or 
middle of April, and place them in a tub of liquid ma- 
nure for two hours, as directed for early forcing. Then 
put them into the green-house, or cold vinery. If the 
weather is severe, cover them at night with a few leaves, 
litter, cloth or canvas, to give them some protection 
from frost. 

About the first of May the eyes will commence to 
break. Disbud down to the two lowest and strongest 
eyes. 

SHIFTING POTS. 

Now shift the vines to eleven inch pots, filling the 
vacant space with sod, compost and special fertilizers, 
as before directed for forcing. Select the strongest eye, 
giving preference to the lowest eye, and pot close up 



24 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

to the shoulder of this eye, so as to get new roots im- 
mediately from the new wood. Water very carefully, 
till the roots extend to the outside of the pot j apply 
the water only to the ball of earth from the old pot, and 
not to the whole soil. A little basin may be made, 
with a rim of soil or sod, so as to keep the water near 
the stem of the vine. If you water the whole contents 
of the pot, the new soil will become sour before the 
roots penetrate it. This is a point of the first import- 
ance. 



The vine will now be stopped in precisely the same 
way, and treated in all respects as directed for vines in- 
tended for forcing. 

The general management of the pot vine in the vi- 
nery will also be the same, in respect to ventilation, 
temperature, moisture, &c, as that of vines in the bor- 
der. 

Shorten the canes back to two feet, or two feet six in- 
ches, say about the first of November, still allowing the 
leaves to remain on till they fall off naturally, and the 
vines go to repose. About the first of December, 
place the pots in a cool cellar, to preserve them from 
frost; never allow the contents of the pots to become 
dust dry, but keep the soil always slightly moist. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 25 



COMPOSTS FOR FRUIT. 

Before placing the pots in the cellar, remove all the 
old soil you can from the pots, without injury to the 
roots, and apply a top-dressing, to promote the forma- 
tion of fruit. This will decompose, and gradually in- 
corporate itself with the mass of the soil, and will an- 
swer nearly as well as if you remove the vine from the 
pot, and shift to a larger pot, with an increase of com- 
post. The usual top-dressing is composed of rich loam, 
bone dust, cow dung, or well rotted stable manure, as 
before. But this dressing, although with the after ap- 
plication of liquid manure it will afford good grapes in 
abundance, does not meet the full requirements of 
the fruiting vine, and consequently cannot be ex- 
pected to produce the largest, most perfectly colored, 
and highly flavored bunches. 

The special manures required for the fruiting vine, 
are carbonaceous matter, silicate of potash, alkaline 
phosphates, tartrate of potash, and a small proportion 
of ammonia. The best method of supplying substances 
affording these ingredients, will be given in another 
part of this work. 

THIRD YEAR — EARLY FORCING. 

After the vines are cut back, at the end of the second 
season, say first of October, remove as much of the soil 



26 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

as possible, and top-dress as directed for the common 
vines. Keep them in a cool place for one month. 

About the first of November remove the pots to a pit, 
and place them in a bottom heat of 75° to 80°, under 
a solar heat of 50° to 60°. Water sparingly till the 
buds break. In one month the eyes will begin to swell. 

During the first month, the pots may be placed in the 
pit with the canes bent down, and the pit kept covered 
with mats quite dark, thus increasing the heat and hu- 
midity, which greatly promote the bursting of the eyes. 

TEMPERATURE, MOISTURE, ETC. 

In the beginning of the second month, when the 
buds are just bursting, the pots may be removed from 
the pit to the hot-house, and placed in a bottom heat of 
80° to 90°, in an atmosphere of 65° by day and 60° at 
night, increasing 10° or 15° by sun heat. It is im- 
portant to break the buds slowly. 

After the buds are fully formed, and just as the 
leaves begin to show, maintain a dry atmosphere, for a 
few days, till the foliage is developed. 

Let the vines go along at the above temperature till 
they begin to show fruit. After the foliage is deve- 
loped, increase the moisture of the atmosphere. 

After the fruit shows, keep the temperature of atmo- 
sphere at 00° to 65° at night, and 75° to 80° by day. 
Continue bottom heat as before. 

Just as the vines come in flower, keep the atmos- 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 27 

phere excessively moist ; increase the heat for a few 
days, and air freely. 

As soon as the fruit shows, stop the shoots upon which 
the bunches appear, at one or two joints beyond each 
bunch intended to be preserved. Usually two or three 
bunches show at the third, fourth and fifth joints. Se- 
lect the best bunch on each shoot for preservation, giv- 
ing the preference to the one nearest the main stem, 
and remove all the rest. Stop all laterals, leaving one 
new leaf every time, and continue to do so till the fruit 
commences to stone ; then desist stopping altogether. 
By this method of stopping, the leaves of the laterals 
become almost as large as the main leaves, at least three 
times the size they usually attain under some of the old 
methods of summer pruning. One very large, well de- 
veloped leaf is worth more to the vine than half a dozen 
small, imperfect leaves. 

Thin the fruit as soon as you can see the berry form- 
ed. This is highly important. Leave about seven 
bunches on a vine two feet six inches high. Thin the 
berries or bunches of free setting grapes very thin, say 
leave only twenty per cent, of the berries ; a bunch of 
four hundred berries, thin to sixty or eighty. You will 
get as much weight of fruit, far superior in size, color, 
and flavor, by so doing. 

Continue to pinch-in the laterals closely, leaving one 
new leaf every time, as before directed, till the fruit 
commences to stone ; then cease stopping and pinching, 
and encourage the growth of foliage as much as possi 



28 BRIGHT ON GRATE CULTURE. 

ble. Should any of the laterals grow very strongly, 
stop them at any time, to keep the plant in proper form. 

The temperature is to be continued for Hamburghs, 
and all kinds except Muscats, (which require 5° to 10° 
higher temperature,) at 65° to 70°, nights, and from 
75° to 85°, days, admitting air freely. Watch for red 
spider closely, and if found, syringe heavily with clear, 
soft, tepid water; wash bricks with lime and sulphur, 
and place them on the hottest part of the pipes or flue. 

Water freely with clear liquid manure, two or three 
times a week, (made with rain water only,) as warm, or 
warmer than the temperature of the house, using simple 
rain water also, as required. 

Keep the top of the house slightly open night and 
day, for ventilation : and air very freely after the first 
symptoms of coloring, in favorable weather. 

G-rapes so grown in pots will ripen, about the middle 
of April, on a vine two feet six inches high, with ordi- 
nary culture, seven bunches, and with first-rate culture, 
eight to ten bunches. 

When the fruit is quite ripe, the pots may be remov- 
ed to any dry, warm room, set on a table in the dwell- 
ing, and the fruit will keep for two months on the vines. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 29 



FOR LATE FORCING, 

Bring forward the pots into a bottom heat, at any 
time previous to the first of April, and pursue the same 
course as in early forcing. 



COMMON MANAGEMENT OF POTS IN THE COLD VINERY, 
OR ORCHARD HOUSE. 

Bring the pots out of the cellar about the middle of 
April, having top-dressed them the fall before, and 
soak them in manure water. Bend down the canes, as 
directed for vines in forcing, until the buds are well 
broken, say two inches long. Then stake them upright. 
Use very dilute manure water freely, or the special fer- 
tilizers required by the grape, increasing the strength 
of the manures as the vines gain vigor. 

Treat the vines in all respects as before directed for 
forcing, and for common vineries, as to stopping, ma- 
nuring, &c. 

These pots will fruit with other vines in August and 
September. 

The pots may also, if convenient, be brought along 
gradually in the hot-house, and fruited from time to 
time in the cold vinery, before the vines in the borders, 
so as to ripen at the end of June, or first of July. They 
may then be removed to a cool room, and if well ripen- 
ed, and the bunches are properly thinned, thej may be 



30 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

kept till the first of October upon the vines in excellent 
condition. 

Late grapes in pots in the cold vinery, such as West's 
St. Peters and Muscats, Lady Down's Seedling, &c, 
will not ripen before the first of October. They may 
then be removed, about the middle of October, to some 
dry, airy, light room, and with abundance of air in dry 
weather, they may be kept in fine condition till Christ- 
mas, and with care, till the first of February or March. 

Thus, by this process, with a little assistance in the 
hot-house, say two months in spring, you may have a 
succession of grapes in pots, from the first of August 
till the first of February, six months in the year ; and 
by pot vine culture in the hot-house and cold vinery, 
you may have grapes every month in the year, if de- 
sired. 



Grape Culture in Vineyards and 
Gardens. 



The following directions are intended for small or 
large vineyards, or the garden culture of grapes on trel- 
lises, for table use and wine. 

SOIL FOR THE GRAPE. 

The best soil for a vineyard is undoubtedly a good 
sandy loam, resting upon a gravelly and but slightly 
clayey sub-soil. If the soil contain a good deal of soft, 
rotten rock, mica, and especially limestone, so much the 
better. Soft rock and mica, by their gradual decompo- 
sition, furnish potash, or silicate of potash, which, with 
lime, constitute two of the most important inorganic 
elements of the grape. A good supply of black, car- 
bonaceous loam, is essential to the soil of a vineyard, 
and if not present, must be added by sod and peat com- 
posts, or plenty of well rotted manure and straw mulch- 
ing. It is not necessary, under the method of culture 
recommended in this work, that the soil should be 
trenched three feet deep, or more, as is advised by some 

(81) 



32 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

writers. Indeed, if the soil be good, and the sub-soil 
be porous or well drained, we think deep trenching not 
only unnecessary but positively injurious to the long- 
continued health and fruitfulness of the vine. If the 
vineyard be deeply plowed and sub-soiled, or otherwise 
worked, so as to give eighteen inches of good mellow, 
well pulverized earth, it is all that is required. We do 
not desire to invite the roots of the grape down into the 
sub-soil. We do not consider it necessary to manure 
the whole soil heavily before planting a vineyard. It 
is a waste of valuable material. We prefer to work the 
manure into the surface of the earth, from year to year, 
as needed, and thus invite the roots upwards into the 
warm, rich surface soil, instead of downwards into the 
cold sterile sub-soil. 

We do not consider a very rich garden soil by any 
means the best for the grape. It will cause too lux- 
uriant a growth of wood. We prefer to apply a top 
dressing of good well-rotted stable manure, hog manure, 
or slaughter-house offal, well composted with peat or sod, 
as a top dressing, in the fall or early spring, before 
using the special manures recommended in another part 
of this work. This will enable the vines to perfect a 
good crop of fruit, or to form the necessary amount of 
wood, each year, without exciting a late growth of suc- 
culent canes, liable to be winter-killed. As to the quan- 
tity of stimulating manure required, we will say that it 
should be about the same as for an acre of wheat, say 
twenty to fifty horse-loads of good, rich, carbonaceous 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 33 

and ammoniacal compost per acre, every year or two ; 
or 300 to 600 pounds of good guano, composted in the 
same way, or mixed with an equal bulk of plaster, well 
moistened, a week or two before using it. 

The special mauures required for a crop of grapes, in 
the vineyard and in pot culture, will be described in 
another section of this work. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL FOR GRAPE VINES. 

The thorough preparation of the soil for the grape 
border, or the vineyard, by ploughing, harrowing, roll- 
ing, spading, raking, &c, is probably of more conse- 
quence than even that of manuring; and by " thorough 
preparation" we mean more than the reader, unless he 
is a skilful cultivator, has any idea of. We mean 
twelve ploughings and harrowings, instead of two. We 
mean one fall ploughing, left rough for winter freezing. 
We mean the breaking up of all lumps of earth with the 
spade ; the most perfect and minute division of the soil 
that is possible, so that it shall be left at last, as light 
as bolted flour. It is in such a soil as this that the 
grape vine delights, a soil which has been worked over 
and over, in a partially dry state, a dozen times at least, 
and allowed to sink into a beautiful consistency by its 
own gravity, without any pressing or treading. We are 
quite of the opinion, that a good old pasture soil, where 
no trees, grain, or vines have grown for twenty years, is 



34 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

the best of all soils for the grape, and that it cannot be 
greatly improved, for the growth of the vine, for a year 
or two, by any sort of manuring whatever. In such a 
soil, the vine grows naturally, luxuriantly, and health- 
fully. It is the best of all soils for a grape border, and 
only when we come to fruit the vine heavily do we need 
manures and fertilizers to sustain it. It is a great mis- 
take to suppose that a grape vine, newly set in a border, 
must at once be fed with an abundance of rich and 
stimulating manure. There is no objection to the appli- 
cation of an abundance of well decomposed sod or peat 
compost, made with one-fourth part of stable manure, 
and some leaf mould and bone dust. But people do not 
rightly understand the meaning of the phrase " well 
decomposed/' It requires either the use of powerful 
chemical agents, or a year or two of time to render stable 
manure and peat really " well decomposed/' It must 
be reduced to a state analogous to that of an old garden 
soil, in which it is impossible to distinguish any of the 
various ingredients of which it is composed. In this 
condition, all the vegetable matter is converted into a 
sort of humus, and all inorganic substances are either in 
a soluble state or ready to become so; the acids and 
alkalies are in a neutral state, or in the shape of harm- 
less salts ; moisture is abundant, and ammonia is not 
wanting. Such preparation of the soil, and such com- 
posts, suit the grape vine a great deal better than animal 
offal and raw bones, which in vine borders we trust 
have had their day. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. o5 

PLANTING, PRUNING AND TRAINING. 

Take good, strong, two-year old plants, set in rows 
six or eight feet apart, and two feet apart in the rows. 
Set in a slanting direction, about four inches under the 
surface of the earth, close up to the young wood of the 
last year's growth, or bury two inches of the young 
wood, and cut down to two eyes. 

When the vine breaks, select the strongest of the two 
eyes, giving the preference to the one nearest the ground, 
and remove the other bud, leading up only one cane. 
Tie perpendicularly on the trellis, and pinch in when 
it reaches the top wire or bar, say four or five feet from 
the surface of the ground. The laterals will now begin 
to grow. Stop all laterals back to one joint, and con- 
tinue to stop in the same way till the middle of August, 
leaving one new leaf on each joint every time. If the 
vine grows very luxuriantly, the laterals may be allowed 
to extend to two or three joints, to prevent the main 
buds from bursting, as it is well known that if the main 
buds be destroyed, the fruit which would otherwise 
be produced next season, will be lost. After the middle 
of August, the vine may be allowed to grow without 
further care or stopping. 

As soon as the leaves fall, cut back every other cane 
within two or three eyes of the ground. Prune the 
canes intended to be fruited the next year to the top of 
the trellis, and cut back all laterals to one inch :>f the 
main stem. 



36 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

For trellises, in small vineyards, we recommend posts 
of good size, set about ten or twelve feet apart, with 
wires run lengthwise the rows, say about six to eight 
inches apart. Number twelve wire is about the right 
size for economy; larger wire would no doubt be better, 
where the first cost is not much regarded. 

When cold weather sets in, it is highly useful, even 
for hardy vines, to lay them down, as you would rasp- 
berry vines, and cover them with soil. The labor is 
not great, in gardens and small vineyards, and the 
benefit derived from such winter protection well repays 
the trouble or expense. If the winter is very severe, 
the canes will escape iujury, and even if mild, they will 
come out much better for this protection. Mulch with 
next year's compost. 

FRUITING THE VINES. 

In the spring, as soon as the peach trees are in bloom, 
uncover the fruiting canes, and sling them carelessly for 
a time, not perpendicularly, but horizontally on the 
lowest wire, thus bending them down till the shoots 
have made a growth of two inches. Then tie them up 
perpendicularly, with pieces of Cuba matting. As soon 
as the fruit buds begin to J)reak, there being generally 
two together, remove the weaker one, which is usually 
the under or lower one, select the bunch nearest the 
main stem for preservation, and stop two joints from the 
bunch. Then stop all laterals, leaving one new leaf 



BRianT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 37 

every time, till the fruit takes its second swelling after 
forming stones (during the stoning process, the berries 
swell but little, say for four or five weeks,) then allow 
the foliage to grow without further check. 

By this process the leaves will grow very large, the 
fruit will be well shaded, and a good crop of largo 
bunches of well colored and well ripened fruit will ordi- 
narily be produced. 

During the stoning of the fruit, if convenient, water 
the vines liberally, and apply liquid manure, or during 
a shower, special grape fertilizers. Afterwards keep 
the grape borders dry. 

After the crop of fruit is gathered, and the leaves 
have fallen, the fruiting canes will be cut down, leaving 
two eyes on the new wood. 

The vine should be allowed to bear only a specimen 
of fruit the second year after planting. The third year 
a fair crop may be taken, say one bunch on each shoot. 
When the vine is fully established, say the fourth or 
fifth year, about six pounds of fruit may be taken from 
four feet of cane, or twelve bunches. More bunches 
may be obtained from this length of cane, but the fruit 
will not be so fine. 

After some years, by this process, the stem of the old 
cane will become too long to be fruited with advantage, 
and the roots will have penetrated too deeply into the 
soil to be further worked with success. The top of the 
vine may then be layered, and a fresh plant, of a vigor- 
ous character will be speedily produced, to take the 



38 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

place of the old vine, having its roots, where all vine 
roots should be, near the surface of the earth. 

THE GROWING VINES. 

When the vines intended to be grown for the next 
season's fruit break strong in the spring, pinch back the 
laterals to two or three joints, so as not to burst the main 
eyes, leaving one new leaf as before directed, every time, 
and stop the tip of the vine at the top of the trellis- 
Continue the same process of stopping till the middle of 
August, when the vine may be allowed to grow without 
further check. 

In autumn, cut back the cane to within two or three 
inches of the top wire or bar of the trellis, and lay down 
for winter protection, as before. 

Vines may be grown in this way tied to stakes, or 
upon arbors, and may be allowed to extend to a height 
of six to fifteen feet if desired, so as to cover an arbor 
with foliage, with nearly as good results as upon low 
trellises in the vineyard, though the crop of fruit will 
not be so fine or so valuable as upon low trellises. 

SPECIAL FEATURES OF THIS SYSTEM. 

It will be perceived that we place the vines only two 
feet apart, thus growing more than double the usual 
number of plants upon a given line of border or trellis. 
By this means we are able to cut down one-half the 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 39 

vines every year, and still liave more fruiting canes than 
by any other plan. The number of roots is greatly in- 
creased, and hence the wood is fully nourished and sus- 
tained. Observe, it is not wood alone that produces 
fruit, but roots. By our system we double and treble 
the number of grape roots in a border, and hence have 
a vastly increased source of supply for our fruit. The 
ordinary system, we are quite convinced, taxes the roots 
too severely, and hence you have too frequently, a large 
quantity of poor, immature fruit. Under this system, 
we have plenty of roots, and an increased number of 
vines, and manage so as to let them do all they are able, 
and no more. We concentrate, as before observed, the 
whole strength of the vine upon a small quantity of 
fruit, near the ground, giving to each vine all it can 
perfect, and the result is larger bunches and finer fruit, 
of higher flavor, and a larger and surer crop on the 
same space of ground. 

The rest from fruiting which the vines obtain, under 
this system, every other year, does much to keep them in 
a healthy state, and does not exhaust their resources for 
forming fruit so rapidly. It is a sort of fallow, giving 
time for the collection and elaboration of the elements 
of fruit, for the ensuing season, which may almost be 
supposed to be drawn from the earth and the atmos- 
phere, during this season of rest, and stored up in the 
cells and tissues of the vine, for future use. Or, if this 
be too fanciful an idea, unsustained by vegetable phy- 
siology, or practical science, still we may say that the 



40 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

soil, during this period of rest, has time to decompose, 
and to develope the elements of fruit, and to collect such 
elements from the atmosphere, from manure and from 
rains; and is better prepared to present these materials 
in a soluble form to the roots of the vine, when demanded 
by the next crop of fruit. 

But whatever may be the theory or the philosophy of 
the facts, we know that the vine, when cultivated upon 
this system, will yield larger and finer crops of grapes, 
upon the same extent of ground, than upon any other 
that we have ever seen practised, and the fruit ripens 
much earlier, which last is a point of no little import- 
ance. 

It will be observed, that a vine may be grown, upon 
this system, fifteen feet in length, upon arbors, or in the 
vinery, if desired ; but for vineyard culture, or in small 
gardens, we advise trellises only four to six feet high, 
on account partly of the greater ease with which such 
trellises may be erected and tended, though we are quite 
convinced that four to six feet of vine is enough for the 
roots, under ordinary culture, and that a better crop will 
be produced upon that length of wood than upon longer 
canes. Under higher culture, and with extra care, in 
the cold grapery, longer canes of the foreign grapes may 
be employed, as will be noticed in the proper place. So, 
also, on arbors, where shade is more of an object than 
fruit, the canes may be allowed to run ten or fifteen 
feet to the top of the trellis or arbor. But where you 
wish for a good crop of choice, well-colored, and well- 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 41 

ripened fruit, low trellises and short canes, (say three 
to live feet high,) grown upon this single stem renewal 
system, will give the best results. 

It is so rare a thing to see first rate Isabella grapes, 
that few persons know to what perfection this grape 
may be brought by high culture and proper concen- 
tration. Much may be done to perfect this grape, by 
the system of management which we have described, 
but still more by the judicious and scientific application 
of special fertilizers, as will be described in the chapter 
on Soils and Manures. As the pea may be made more 
melting, and the potato more mealy by the use of lime, 
and the strawberry more delicious by the use of tan, so 
the grape may be rendered more luscious, vinous, and 
sugary, by the application of proper fertilizers, as well 
as larger and more beautiful to the eye. 



Large or small vineyards, or borders for arbors, may 
of course be planted with cuttings, or with transplanted 
cuttings started in a nursery, or with plants struck from 
single eyes in pots, and trained to stakes instead of 
trellises. 

It is unnecessrry for us to describe all these processes 
in detail, as we presume no one will undertake grape 
culture without being familiar with these elementary 
matters ; or if they desire such information, may easiiy 
find it in any general work on the grape. 



42 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

We will only say that in planting cuttings, we prefer 
slips of only two joints or eyes, instead of cuttings four 
or five joints long. We set the short cutting with only 
one bud below the surface of the ground, which makes 
a plant with a short root, whereas a cutting four or five 
joints long, plunged a foot or more deep into the soil, 
forms its " foot roots," as they are styled, too far below 
the best part of the soil, and never will form so good a 
vine as if cut shorter, and rooted entirely within four 
inches of the surface. Our reasons for shallow planting 
will be given in full in another part of this work. 



MULCHING VINEYARDS. 

Under the system of shallow planting recommended 
in this work, it is indispensable that the soil of vineyards 
and grape borders should be constantly mulched, espe- 
cially in summer; and indeed under any system of plant- 
ing in any part of the United States where the Catawba 
will ripen, it will be found highly useful to shade the 
ground in some way from the direct rays of the sun, in 
July and August. Any kind of litter will, of course, 
answer this purpose ; charcoal, or tan composted with 
lime, would be very good ; but the best mulch, beyond 
all question, would be the leaves of trees. 

To mulch an acre of vineyard with any of these sub- 
stances effectually, would cost almost as much as to 
manure it with the best of fertilizers; and hence we can 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 43 

scarcely expect it will be done unless some cheap means 
of accomplishing this object can be suggested. 

One very cheap and efficient means of mulching a 
vineyard, which we have practised to some extent and 
find quite satisfactory, is to plant in a drill between the 
rows of vines, the Southern Field Pea or Cow Pea, a 
leguminous plant very much employed in Virginia and 
other Southern States, as a green crop to renovate worn- 
out soils, by ploughing under while in flower. This 
plant will grow in any soil, if supplied with lime, and 
will endure the severest drouth without flagging. It 
sends its roots very deeply into the sub-soil, and obtains 
the larger portion of its nutriment from the atmosphere. 
It has a stalk almost as large and firm as that of a to- 
mato vine, and spreads widely over the surface of the 
ground. In ninety days it produces as much mulching 
material, and as much green matter of tops and roots, 
for manure, as an acre of good clover, and of precisely 
the same character and value, either for manure or food. 
It is well known, we presume, to all intelligent readers 
of modern agricultural literature, that the stalk and 
vine of the pea is richer in nitrogen, (or ammoniacal 
substances,) and alkaline salts, than the best of wheat 
or rye straw, and hence must form a very valuable ma- 
terial for mulching or manure. 

Our method of planting the pea is this : we culti- 
vate the spaces between the rows of vines very lightly 
with the horse-hoe, in the spring, and about the first of 
June open a very shallow furrow with a small plow, in 



44 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

each space, and drop the peas in this furrow or drill, so 
as to form hills about two or three feet apart in the 
drill, say ten or fifteen peas in a hill, and cover with 
the plow or hoe. Afterwards cultivate a little to keep 
down weeds, just as you would ordinary peas or corn. 
It takes about half a bushel, or less, of seed to plant an 
acre of vineyard in this way, and the seed costs about 
$1.25 per bushel in Baltimore. 

This pea vine makes a very perfect shade for the 
roots of the grape, while growing, during July and Au- 
gust, and when cut down, just as it comes into flower, 
in the early part of September, furnishes a large quan- 
tity of valuable litter for mulching and manure. It 
does not exhaust the soil, because it returns to it more 
of carbon and nitrogen than it abstracts from it; and it 
only takes potash, lime, &c, from the sub-soil, to return 
it to the top-soil in a state better fitted for the food of 
plants. We have used the kind of pea known as the 
clay, or cow pea, and also the black eye pea. The early 
Hack is said to be the best for a northern climate. 

We consider this method of mulching vineyards very 
economical, and amply sufficient to protect the roots of 
vines from excessive heat and drouth. Since we com- 
menced this practice, we have learned that a similar 
method of mulching has been employed in France for 
many years. In Redding's Treatise on Modern Wines, 
published in London, in 1833, he states that, " in some 
parts of France, lupines (a kind of pea) are sown among 
the vines, and buried when in flower around their roots, 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 45 

where they decay; a practice found to be of singular 
utility to the crops" Again, lie says, of vineyards in 
the island of Madeira, " sonic growers use animal ma- 
nures, which others reject, and as the French do, they 
sow lupines among the vines, and bury them at their 
roots.'' 

In some of the letters written by Mr. Longworth, of 
Cincinnati, on the rot in grapes, he states that in seve- 
ral instances, vineyards which were planted on dry, 
porous soil, and accidentally mulched with weeds, es- 
caped the rot, while vineyards in the immediate vicinity, 
which were kept clean, and not mulched, suffered se- 
verely. These passages will be found in Mr. Buch- 
anan's work on the grape. 

We believe that only by shallow planting and good 
mulching, can we maintain the continued healthfulness 
of vineyards, while by trenching, heavy manuring, and 
deep planting, we shall be sure, sooner or later, to in- 
duce rot and mildew, and the final destruction of the 
vines. 



Vines in City Yards. 

Vines on trellises in city yards and small village 
gardens, may be most conveniently and profitably ma- 
naged upon the single stem renewal system of training 
herein recommended. The borders for such vines in 
the city should, if possible, be formed of brick-work, 
detached from the adjacent cold, compact and useless 
soil of the yard, and underdrained by tiles conducted 
into a cess-pool or culvert, in order to render them 
warmer and dryer, spring and fall ; and a mulching of 
litter in summer will greatly assist in retaining mois- 
ture. Twice the number of vines will of course be 
grown as under the ordinary system, and only half of 
them fruited each year. Vines so managed will make 
an astonishing growth in a single season, often running 
to the height of the tallest trellis, if well supplied with 
appropriate fertilizers ; while the foliage of the fruiting 
and the growing canes will afford quite as much shade 
as vines grown with long branches in the ordinary way, 
and they can be much more easily and systematically 
trained, and produce more and better fruit. Vines on 
city trellises, allowed to ramble at will for the sake of 
shade, and sparingly fed with proper nutriment, seldom 

(46) 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 47 

fruit foi many years, and even when they do bear, the 
fruit is of little value. But when grown upon our sys- 
tem, with a good exposure, they will not only make 
ample shade, and present a pleasing object to the eye, 
but they can be made to produce large crops of the 
most delicious grapes every year. 

For the method of training adapted to city trellises, 
see the section upon the common vineyard. The only 
variation that should be made in training for the high 
trellis, is this : the vine should not be stopped at the 
height of four or five feet, but should be allowed to run 
to the full height of the trellis, and if the wood to the 
full height should not happen to be strong and solid, 
the first season, it should be cut back to the strong wood 
before fruiting the first time. After the vine gets 
older, it will make strong wood to the full height of the 
tallest trellis, in one season, provided it be well fed with 
proper fertilizers. We think this system of training 
for city trellises, will be much admired when once it has 
been tried. 

VINES ON ARBORS. 

Vines on arbors, in villa and cottage lots, and small 
gardens, may be trained upon our system with great 
satisfaction and advantage. Plant the vines two feet 
or less apart, and train with a single stem, as in the 
vineyard, and fruit every other cane each year. If 
the border be good, and well fertilized, the vines will 



48 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

run to the top of the arbor in a single season, and afford 
immediate shade and abundance of fruit, far surpassing, 
in respect to beauty and profit, vines grown in the com- 
mon way. 

Vines on old arbors may be renewed by layers from 
the old stock, and trained upon this system with great 
ease and success, entirely renovating the old vines, and 
changing the system of culture in one year, to the great 
delight of the owner. 

A very pretty arbor may be made upon the south 
side of a barn or house, by planting posts two feet high, 
say four or five feet from the wall or barn, and run- 
ning rafters from these posts to the barn or house, just 
like the rafters of a vinery. Strain wires lengthwise of 
this arbor, plant and train the vines on the inside of 
the rafters, and you have a sort of out of door vinery, 
(minus the glass,) a very novel and interesting object, 
and a very admirable method of growing grapes. The 
bunches of grapes, when vines are trained on this plan, 
will hang under the foliage, affording a degree of shade 
which is very useful to them, and a current of cool, 
moist air will constantly pass through the arbor, which 
is highly beneficial to the vines. For the Catawba 
grape especially, this would be an excellent method ; 
and if the borders were slightly elevated, and well 
drained, so as to be easily dried off in the fall, a sure 
crop of fine, well ripened grapes might be obtained, 
every year, from such an arbor, at least as far north as 
Philadelphia. Farther north, it might be advisable to 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 49 

provide some protection against frost, such as an awn- 
ing, which could be easily contrived for such a lean-to 
arbor. And here we may observe that it will be found 
of great advantage, especially in working upon our sys- 
tem, always to bury your canes intended for fruit the 
next year, in winter, and to mulch well in very cold 
weather. 

Arbors may also be made with roofs pitching both 
ways, like a spar-roofed vinery, instead of oval, with 
great economy and advantage, upon which vines will 
grow and fruit upon the one stem renewal system with 
great success. 

Vines may also be grown, upon this system, tied to 
small stakes, say five or six feet high, set anywhere in a 
small lawn or garden, just as you would set out a dwarf 
cherry or currant bush, and much fruit may be obtain- 
ed, of excellent quality, while the vines will form very 
pleasing objects in your grounds. Of course, two vines 
should be planted to each stake, one for fruiting, and 
one for growing wood ; and if you please, you may train 
them upon small pieces of wood nailed across the stakes, 
or far prettier, upon the stump of a tree, or upon any 
sort of upright fancy trellises that your inventive faculty 
may suggest. This is a method of planting and training 
well adapted to any small piece of vacant ground in any 
yard or garden, where formal arbors or trellises would 
be inadmissible ; and is quite as good a plan for obtain* 
ing fruit as any other, and more novel and interesting. 
4 



Kenewing an Old Vine, or Arbor of 
Vines. 



Many persons have old vines, which, from being 
badly pruned and trained, fail to give either good or 
abundant fruit, and yet the owners are loth to dig them 
up, because they afford much shade, and they are fear- 
ful that they may not succeed in producing other vines 
more systematic in form, or more productive. Such 
persons often ask us if they can bring their old vines 
into our system of pruning, with any success. We an- 
swer, yes. Our method of doing it is this : we prepare 
a new border alongside of the old vine, and layer all 
the wood that can be made available, burying the body 
of the cane some six inches deep, along the border, and 
bringing up the branches and young wood as layers, alb 
points where we desire to locate the new vines. The 
whole vine may be coiled up like a spiral spring, and 
buried at .one spot, and a layer or layers may then be 
brought up, within a small space of ground, from the 
young wood ; or the branches may be carried any dis- 
tance under ground, and brought up wherever desired. 
The roots of the old vine should at the same time be 
abundantly supplied with appropriate fertilizers, to pro 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 51 

mote the rapid formation of wood ; and the growth 
which may be obtained in a single season, by this plan, 
is often truly surprising. 

Other methods of obtaining layers, without burying 
the whole cane, will readily occur to persons acquainted 
with the nature of the vine, and it is therefore unneces- 
sary to describe them. 

As soon as the new layers are well rooted, say at the 
beginning of the second season, they may be separated 
from the old vine, and thus a great number of young 
and vigorous plants may be obtained, in place of one 
old, barren, and almost worthless cane. We have re- 
newed several old vines and arbors in this way, produc- 
ing twenty or thirty new, healthy, fruitful canes, ten 
and fifteen feet in length, in a single season, where be- 
fore existed only an old, tangled mass of barren wood, 
unsightly and useless, even for purposes of shade, to 
the great delight and astonishment of the owner. Our 
system of pruning gives as much shade on arbors as 
any other, and vastly more fruit, of an infinitely supe- 
rior quality. If shade high up on the trellis or arbor 
be an object, the vine need not be cut back so low as 
for the vineyard, but its fruiting wood may be taken 
from any height that may be desired. 



Ohio German System of Grape Culture. 






GROWING FRUIT AND WOOD ON TDZE SAME STEM. — 
BOWING VINES. 

The " Ohio German System" of Grape Culture as it 
has been called, which is practised in the vineyards near 
Cincinnati, consists in growing one or more fruiting 
shoots, or bows, and one or more new shoots for the 
next season's fruiting bows, in a single year, on the same 
stem. 

Now it is a sort of law of nature that you cannot suc- 
cessfully grow wood and fruit at the same time ; or at 
least it is true that the stimulating manures which best 
promote a growth of wood or vine, are not favorable to 
fruit, and those manures which best promote the forma- 
tion of fruit, do not excite an active growth of wood. 
A heavy crop of fruit always checks the growth of a 
tree or vine, and in many fruit trees renders them sterile 
the next year. Hence, we argue that it is not wise to 
attempt to grow a heavy crop of fruit, and the next 
year's wood on the same vine, or from the same grape 
root. 

Under our system, we concentrate the whole force of 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 53 

the grape root, for one year, upon the fruit, and aid this 
if you please, by special manure directed to that object. 
The next year we cut down the entire vine, and give it 
time to rest and form new wood, stimulating it, if need 
be, by proper means, to accomplish that object. This 
we think is far the best method. 

The bowing of vines we consider quite unnecessary. 
We agree with Dr. C. W. Grant, the eminent grape 
grower of Iona, New York, who says that " the disposi- 
tion of the vine is strongly upward, and under ordinary 
circumstances will not continue to make bearing-wood, 
for a succession of seasons, through a greater perpendi- 
cular height than four feet, and even within these limits 
the upper portions will show the greatest vigor of 
growth, and the lower the best flavor, but not the largest 
or the most beautiful bunches. " 

The bow in j plan is adopted at Cincinnati to prevent 
the too free growth of the top of the vine, and to equalize 
the flow of sap to all parts of the cane. 

We accomplish the same object, as will be seen by 
reference to our directions for the management of vines 
in the vineyard and in pot culture, by slinging the vines 
in the spring, in a horizontal or bowing form, for a short 
time, till the lower buds break and form shoots two or 
three inches long, when the vines may be raised up and 
trained perpendicularly without any injurious effect 
upon the lower shoots. Once the lower eyes get a good 
start they will obtain sufficient sap to form good fruit, 
and the natural tendency tc excessive growth in the top 



5tf BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 






will be so effectually checked as to render continued 
bowing quite unnecessary. 

In the vinery or hot-house, all first class gardeners 
oend down the canes in spring till the lower eyes break 
strongly, before tieing up the vines to the trellis, in 
order to ensure an equal diffusion of sap to all parts of 
the cane. This is all the bowing that is really neces- 
sary. 

Our objection to the bowing plan is, that the vine 
cannot be so easily and effectually secured to the stake 
or trellis, and is more liable to be blown about by the 
wind, to the injury of the fruit, while it has a rough, 
straggling appearance, and does not form so pleasing an 
object to the spectator, as when trained in an erect 
position. 



The Cold Vinery 



For the cold vinery, as well as the hot-house, we 
recommend, as of the first importance, small, shallow, 
detached borders, (which we will immediately proceed 
to describe) altogether inside of the house. The com- 
mon border may, however, be used if preferred. 

The inside border, at first, if true economy be con- 
sulted, should be made only two feet deep and three feet 
wide, resting upon a concrete bottom with six inches of 
small, rough stones, or oyster-shell drainage above it. 
Between the outer edge of the border and the front wall 
of the vinery, there should be a space of say four inches, 
formed by four inch brick work, to assist in keeping the 
frost out of the border. This space is kept open at the 
top to admit warm air from the house, and connected 
below with pipes, or tiles, or conductors constructed of 
brick, running through the drainage, to conduct the 
warm air under the border. This open space in front 
of the border, and the conductors of tiles or bricks, serve 
not only the purpose of keeping frost out of the border, 

(55) 



56 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

but also, at all seasons to equalize the temperature of 
the border and the house, which is of great importance 
in vine culture. These air conductors are to be laid in 
the drainage, above the concrete, and may be formed 
by dry brickwork, making a tube four inches in diame- 
ter, or by four inch tiles, connecting with the open 
space between the border and the front wall, and open- 
ing into the house on the inner edge of the border, 
there passing through a wall of dry brick or stone, or 
even boards, merely to keep the inside edge of the 
border in place. 

The border, when constructed on this plan, will bo 
entirely detached from the soil, both inside and outside 
of the house. It will rest upon drainage, laid upon 
solid, impervious concrete, and will have a wall, de- 
tached from the house, on the front and back. It will 
be situated like the earth in a pot or orchard-house tub, 
and will be, in fact, one immense pot or box, perfectly 
confining the roots of the vines within its own limits. 

We feel entirely satisfied that this is the best method 
now known of constructing a vine border. The shallow 
border, entirely inside of the house, is now beginning to 
be employed by some of the best grape growers in Europe 
and America. The atmospheric conductors, though not 
entirely original with the writer, have been more largely 
employed and advocated by us than by any other writer 
or practical grape grower within our knowledge. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 57 

ATMOSPHERIC CONDUCTORS. 

The philosophy of Atmospheric Conductors, under 
vine borders, we have presented in various articles pub- 
lished in the horticultural journals. The following is 
from an article on this subject, which we contributed to 
the Philadelphia Gardener's Monthly, for January, 
1859 :— 

" One of the chief points in the management of vin- 
eries, as all intelligent gardeners are aware, is to control 
and regulate the temperature of the borders, so as to 
give the roots an early start in the spring, and to put 
them into a state of repose early in the fall. If the 
growth of roots be too luxuriant in the fall, in conse- 
quence of excessive heat in the border, immature roots 
and wood will be the result, greatly to the detriment of 
the vine the ensuing season. So if the vine, by frost, 
prematurely lose its foliage, then the main roots can- 
not be matured, and a good ' break' of buds cannot be 
expected in the spring. There must be a perfect unity 
of action between the upper extremity of the vine and 
its roots, to ensure the highest degree of success in grape 
culture. 

" In the fall, as we all know, the temperature of the 
atmosphere will often fall to 40° Fahrenheit, while the 
earth two feet under the surface is at 65°. On or 
about the 15th of November, 1857, the thermometer 
fell to 17°, and the foliage of many vines in cold houses 
was suddenly cut off, while the bottom heat of the bor- 



58 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

ders was at 60°. Immature roots, which could not be 
expected to keep, were produced. Such vines must, 
of course, l break' weakly in the spring; their great 
feeders are mainly destroyed, and they must create 
them again in the spring before they can make strong- 
growth. 

" In April the solar heat is often 75°, while the tem- 
perature of the earth is little higher than the freezing 
point. In such cases, the canes are, of course, unduly 
excited into action, while the roots are comparatively 
dormant, and the natural balance of the vine or the nice 
unity of action between the root and the wood, which it 
is so important to preserve, is destroyed. 

" To attain the most perfect success in vine culture, 
it would be desirable to keep the border heat, in spring, 
about ten degrees above the solar heat, and to reduce 
the temperature of the border in autumn in the same 
proportion. As soon as the grape crop is matured, we 
should hasten, by all proper means, the ripening of 
roots and wood, — the border should be dried and cooled, 
and the roots thrown into a state of repose. As soon as 
the roots cease their functional action, the upper wood 
will be in a state of rest. So, in the spring, a quick 
heat in the border will start the roots at the same time 
with the canes, and a healthy growth of roots and wood 
must be the result of such harmonious action." 



BRIGHT ON GRATE CULTURE. 59 

INSIDE BORDERS, 

Are far preferable to borders extending partly beyond 
the front wall outside. Inside the house, in detached 
borders, we have the most perfect control of the vine, 
as to moisture, protection from frost, and the extent to 
which the roots may be permitted to extend downward. 
The expense of construction is much less, and the labor 
of covering and protecting them is saved. Large, deep 
borders are no longer advocated by the best grape 
growers, and hence there is no necessity for extending 
them beyond the limits of the house. All the plans 
which we shall present, for the culture of the vine 
in graperies, form part of one entire system of improved 
construction and management, which, it is believed, 
renders growing of grapes under glass much more 
economical and successful than by the old methods. 

Before concreting the bottom of the border, remove 
the soil to the depth required, and level the border so 
as to descend about nine inches each way to the centre 
line, forming it so as to open into a drain built of bricks 
and mortar along the centre of the house, six inches 
square, falling below the concrete, but constructed so as 
to unite closely with it. That is to say, the drainage of 
the border, passing down the surface of the concrete, 
will fall into a drain built of bricks and mortar, running 
along the centre line, and falling six inches below it. 
The drain will of course have a proper fall from one end 



60 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

of the house to the other, and will discharge its contents, 
if any, by a waste pipe carried outside the house. 

Before laying the concrete, well ram the bottom of 
the border, smooth and solid, and construct the middle 
drain. 

CONCRETE. 

"We presume almost every Jpody engaged in rural 
affairs, knows how to make concrete, but all may not 
know how to make it easily and perfectly. Our plan is 
this. We first construct a mortar-bed, of sufficient size, 
of boards. Then we slack one or more barrows of lime, 
as required, in a lime box or tub, and add water till it 
is reduced to the condition of thick cream or ordinary 
whitewash. Now draw or dip off the lime water, free 
from unslacked lumps or stone, and pour it into the 
mortar-bed, first having placed around its edges a layer 
of sand to keep the lime water from running off. Then 
shovel or wheel into the bed a quantity of course sand, 
gravel, and small, rough stones, sufficient to soak up 
nearly all the lime water. Commence at the outer edge 
of the heap, and hoe down and mix the mass, with a 
mason's hoe, working it up a little into good, coarse mor- 
tar, and tempering it with more lime water if needed, and 
as it is hoed down, shovel it over into a heap on the outer 
edge of the bed. Now it is ready for use. Let a laborer 
shovel this coarse mortar into a barrow, and deposit it 
upon the bottom of the border in a layer about two or 






BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 61 

three inches thick, smoothing it off with a hoe, trowel, 
or any other convenient instrument. If made with good, 
fresh lime and sand, gravel and stones, free from loam, 
and pretty rich with lime, it will set in twenty-four 
hours, and in a few days become very hard, and finally 
quite impervious to water or the roots of plants. If the 
lime be slacked in the mortar-bed, and not screened 
clear of lumps, the concrete will be much less perfect; 
and if the workmen attempt to wet the heap of sand and 
stones, by pouring lime water upon it, or to dig the 
heap when wet from the top, much time and labor will 
be expended in a useless manner. 

DRAINAGE. 

After the concrete has become solid, lay the atmos- 
pheric conductors across the border, and deposit the 
drainage material between and upon them, about six 
inches deep. 

DIVIDED BORDERS. 

In addition to placing the grape border altogether in- 
side the house, and detaching it from the front wall and 
from the soil, we have also lately divided the border 
into sections two feet wide, by brick partitions, keeping 
every vine by itself, just as if the border consisted of a 
number of large pots or tubs. This method we like very 
much, aud earnestly recommend it to the attention of 



62 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

grape growers. Each section of the border, intended 
for a single vine, will be three feet long, two feet wide, 
and two feet deep. The quantity of compost which 
this space will contain is amply sufficient to sustain a 
vine for several years, and when any danger of exhaus- 
tion is apprehended, it may easily be enlarged. 

The advantages of divided borders are numerous and 
important. In the first place, there is no possibility, 
under such circumstances, that the stronger growing 
vines can interfere with or injure the weaker ones. At 
the same time, the weaker ones can be watered or ma- 
nured freely, if desired, without affecting the vines on 
either side of them. Or, the strong growing kinds may 
be checked, if necessary, to make them fruitful, by 
giving less nutriment and less water. In the common 
border, extending outside of the house, it i§ almost im- 
possible to induce the Muscats to ripen their wood, espe- 
cially the king of all the Muscats, the Cannon Hall; 
while in pots, where we have full control of the mois- 
ture of the soil, we find no such difficulty, and the wood 
matures in the most perfect manner. Again, if you 
have any very weak or imperfect vines in your border, 
or some whose quality you do not like, you can take any 
one or more of them out, and replace them with more 
thrifty or more desirable kinds, without in the least 
disturbing the roots of other vines. In the common 
border it is almost impossible to remove a large, old 
vine, without doing great injury to the adjacent vines, 
nor can you grow a voung vine, with good success, in a 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 63 

bordei full of the roots of older vines. Grafting or in- 
arching may be resorted to in the case of the common 
border, but these operations it is sometimes difficult for 
amateurs to perform with success. Each vine, in the 
divided border, gets its allotted share of nutriment with 
the utmost certainty, and thus it is very easy to measure 
off the food for each carefully, or to try experiments 
with different fertilizing agents, or single ones, without 
the danger of affecting your whole house in case of error. 
But the ease with which you may change the vines in 
your house, already alluded to, is one of the most pleasing 
advantages. Vines may be grown in pots, of good size, 
ready for fruiting, and set in one of your large divisions 
in the border, either with or without its ball of earth, 
and it is only like shifting to a larger pot. It will be 
ready to fruit at once. At the time of making such 
changes of vines, you may also, if you choose, change 
the entire soil in each section of the border from which 
old vines are removed, without in the least disturbing 
other parts of the border. The fact is, that the arbi- 
trary old system of making a large border, inside and 
outside of the house, and planting once for all, with no 
convenient way of changing your vines, and waiting 
years to fill the borders with roots and the house with 
wood, before you enjoy the fruits of your investment 
and labor, is really very absurd. In the small divided 
border, with well grown pot vines, you may fruit half 
your house, if you choose, the first year ; and you ma; 
change your stock of varieties as often as you please, 



Gi BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

losing very little time or fruit by the operation. If you 
have any fears that the divisions of the border will be 
too small to sustain the vines, just reflect that a vine in 
a pot eleven inches in diameter, containing little more 
than half a cubic foot of soil, is capable of producing 
from five to ten pounds of well perfected grapes, and 
that the divisions of the border here described will con- 
tain twelve cubic feet of soil, and may easily be increased 
in size if desired, and the vines will be expected to bear 
only about twenty to thirty pounds of grapes once in 
two years. Borders have almost always been made too 
large, some of them contain five hundred cubic feet of 
soil to each vine, and immensely rich at that. Such 
borders really do more harm than good. In a few years 
they invariably become sodden and sour, and in many 
instances the grapes mildew and shank, or the vines 
die out altogether. The cost of such borders is very 
great, and altogether unnecessary. If you wish to im- 
prove a divided border without enlarging it, you can 
easily remove some of the top soil, and replace it with 
fresh, light, sweet, rich compost, or apply an increased 
quantity of special fertilizers. Or, we have no doubt 
that the vine might be lifted from a section of a divided 
border, late in the fall, its roots freed of old soil, or even 
washed out in warm water, and replanted in fresh soil, 
without material injury, if not with great advantage. 
Indeed we think that small detached and divided bor- 
ders, entirely inside the house, will be found cheaper, 



BRIGHT ON ORATE CULTURE. 65 

more convenient and efficient than any other form of 
border, and will soon be universally adopted. 

ROOFS OF VINERIES. 

In this work we do not intend to consider at any 
length, the best methods of constructing hot-houses, or 
cold graperies, but we will suggest to amateurs in build- 
ing new vineries, to be sure and have fixed roofs, with 
permanent bars, and uniform ventilation on the top, and 
not sliding sash, after the old method. 

COMPOSTS AND SOIL FOR BORDERS. 

Make the compost, for the vine border, of good loam 
from the surface of a well cultivated field, (not from an 
old garden,) where no trees have grown for many years, 
and where the soil is nearly in a virgin state, but not 
likely to be sour from excess of moist vegetable matter, 
or exhausted by heavy and injudicious cropping. Let 
this loam be mixed with one-third its bulk of sod from 
an old headland or pasture, finely chopped with a sharp 
spade or grubbing hoe. Add to about twenty one-horse 
loads of this mixture, about four bushels of good water- 
slacked lime, or better still, three bushels of lime and 
salt mixture, made by slacking three bushels of lime 
with one bushel of salt dissolved in water, and frequently 
turned over for two weeks before use. If you have any 
wood ashes, add four bushels of unleached, or ten 

5 



66 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

bushels of loached ashes. Turn over this heap twice, 
moistening it well with water, if not wet by raiu, and 
waiting till it becomes pretty dry before turning. Be 
very careful and not turn the heap when in the least 
degree wet. The dryer the better, for turning and chop- 
ping. In fact this compost should be made under a 
shed, or covered with boards, if exposed to too much 
rain. Now add to this compost of about twenty horse- 
loads, say five one-horse loads of well-rotted stable 
manure, horse and cow dung, or its equivalent of any 
rich nitrogenous compost; and ten horse loads of soft, 
rotten rock of a limestone or micaceous character, and 
sand ; or rotten rock and sandy road-scrapings from a 
turnpike. If you choose to add ten to twenty bushels 
of finely crushed bones, or' one or two barrels of good 
super-phosphate of lime, or our special fertilizer, it will 
be useful, although the bones will serve little other use 
than as a substitute for sand, and the super-phosphate 
of lime or fertilizer may be better applied upon the sur- 
face of the border when needed. Let your vines, at 
first, rest in good natural soil, well manured, and they 
will form plenty of vigorous wood; afterwards apply 
special fertilizers, as needed, to produce and perfect the 
fruit, and the highest success will be attained. 

Put no carcasses of animals, offal of slaughter-houses, 
night soil, guano, or any rich animal matter, or other 
stimulating manure into or under the border, bcyund 
what we have advised ; although if the stable manure 
be poor, it may be made a little richer by the addi- 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 67 

tion of a bag of guano, without injury. Let the com- 
post, made up as directed, be kept moderately moist, 
and turned frequently, chopped and pulverized as much 
as possible, so as to reduce it to a state of minute divi- 
sion. The finer the particles of the soil the better. 
Again we say, turn the heap only when dry or nearly 
so. Finally, deposit it in the border, and after the vines 
are planted, mulch it with two or three inches of half 
rotted leaves. 

PLANTING AND TRAINING THE VINES. 

Take good, strong, two year old vines, grown from 
eyes, place them within sixteen inches of the front of 
the house, and two feet apart in the row. Set the vines 
close down to the young wood, and if from pots, cover 
the ball of earth and roots with about two inches of soil. 

If the planting be done in the fall, cut the vines down 
to two eyes, as soon as the leaves are off. Cover the vines 
with four to six inches of fine charcoal or litter, to pro- 
tect from frost, and if litter be used as a cover look out 
for mice. 

In spring, it is advisable to retard the cold vinery, 
and keep the plants back as long as possible. As soon 
as safe from frost, or if you have the aid of a flue, or 
stoves, say about the first of April in the latitude of 
Philadelphia, uncover the vines and slightly stir the 
border. No manure is now needed, unless it be a small 



68 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

quantity of special fertilizer, such as we have recom- 
mended in the section on that subject. 

When the border is uncovered give it a thorough 
soaking of pure rain water. 

As soon as the canes have broken two inches long, 
select the strongest bud, giving the preference to the 
one nearest the ground, and remove the other. The 
weather being mild, the canes will grow rapidly. Air 
the house freely in warm, mild weather, as soon as the 
thermometer reaches 55°, with top air only. Keep the 
border moderately moist, not wet, but when the border 
is watered, give it a good soaking. When the vines 
have grown two or three feet, and the temperature under 
glass has increased to 70°, put on one foot of air on the 
top of the house and keep the floor sprinkled with water, 
during sunny days, shutting up the house before the 
sun leaves it; at the same time thoroughly syringe all 
parts of the house, vines and all, night and morning, 
with pure, soft, warm rain water, which has been ex- 
posed to the sun in tubs, so as to be of the same tem- 
perature as the atmosphere in the house. Use a syringe 
with a fine rose, throwing a mere mist on the vines, and 
apply it gently, so as not to injure the delicate tissue of 
the leaves. 

About the middle of May, if the weather be mild, 
admit about two inches of air on the top of the house 
about 8 o'clock in the evening, leaving it open all night 
ail through the season, except in cold, chilly nights. 

As the canes advance in growth, stop all laterals to 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 69 

one joint, leaving one new leaf every time, till the vine 
reaches the top of the house, when the leader will be 
stopped, — and continue to stop in the same way, leaving 
one new leaf on each joint till the end of the season 
The best length of rafter for a cold grapery is about 
fifteen feet. 

After the first of September, give the border no more 
water. When the leaves fall, and the wood is well 
ripened, cut down every alternate cane within two eyes 
of the ground, and the canes intended to be fruited next 
year to the height of about six feet. 

Late in the season, lay the canes down, and cover 
them up with charcoal or litter, as before directed, for 
winter protection. 

FRUITING THE VINES. 

About the first of April, uncover the vines and apply 
to the border a top dressing of such manures as you 
think best, or the special fertilizers which we have re- 
commended in another part of this work. Then give 
the border a good soaking with pure, soft water. Bend 
the fruiting canes down in a half circle, by slinging 
them loosely along the lower wires, till the vines break 
two or three inches. Then tie up the canes perpendi- 
cularly. Two buds will usually appear at each joint. 
Remove the weaker bud, which is usually the lower 
one. 

As soon as the vines are uncovered, in sunny days 



70 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

syringe freely night and morning, with pure rain water. 
When the atmosphere of the house rises to 50° or 55°, 
give four or five inches of top ventilation, in clear days, 
increasing to one foot as the heat rises to 75° or 80°. 

Apply small quantities of special fertilizers, from 
time to time, such as your experience suggests, or such 
as we recommend in our section on this subject. 

The vines will now be coming into flower. Keep the 
house as warm as you can, with moderate ventilation, 
and maintain a high degree of humidity in the atmos- 
phere, by sprinkling the floor and syringing the vines 
freely night and morning. 

When the fruit shows, select the bunches nearest the 
main stem for preservation, stopping each shoot two 
joints beyond the bunch, and continue to stop in the 
same way, leaving one new leaf each time, which will 
cause a growth of strong, well developed foliage. 

Thin the fruit on the bunches, immediately after it 
is set the size of a pin's head, on all free setting kinds, 
leaving not more than twenty per cent, of the fruit, and 
cutting out the berries from the inside so as to extend 
the size of the bunches as much as possible. 

Now top dress pretty freely with special fertilizers, 
containing super-phosphate cf lime and tartrate of pot- 
ash, or whatever else your views of grape culture may 
deem most useful to assist in the formation of fruit. 

Keep the border quite moist during the formation of 
fruit, and air freely during warm days, on the top of the 
house, with doors and bottom ventilation close. Let 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 71 

the whole house be frequently sprinkled, and keep the 
atmosphere very humid, and allow a little night ventila- 
tion, as advised for first season in growing canes. 

As soon as the grapes begin to stone, cease stopping, 
and let the foliage ramble at will. When the fruit begins 
to color, admit a little front air on mild days, and very 
warm nights, and discontinue syringing and watering 
the border, as a dry house hastens the ripening process. 

The growing canes will be treated in precisely the 
same way as the canes the first season after planting, 
stopping the laterals, as before described. 

This completes the chief directions for managing the 
cold grapery under the renewal system, (growing the 
canes and fruiting,) for two seasons. The following 
years will be but a repetition of the same methods, ex- 
cept in respect to the size of the border, and the entire 
renewal of the vines. 

After two seasons, it may be advisable to increase 
the width of the border from three to five feet, in order 
to allow the roots more space, and to present to them 
some fresh compost; this may be done by concreting the 
space intended to be covered by the new border; extend 
the atmospheric conductors, build up the brick work, 
and then add compost prepared as before. This same 
process may be repeated, from time to time, until the 
border is extended entirely across the house, if desired, 
thus giving fresh nutriment to the roots, in large bulk, 
of a simple natural character, as well as by top dressing 
with special fertilizers. 



72 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

After some years, under this system, the main stem 
of the vines will become too long to be fruited with ad- 
vantage, and the tip of the vines may then be layered, 
and fresh plants, with new roots, will be speedily pro- 
duced to take the place of the old. 

If desired, the whole house may be renovated, in this 
way, in a single season, and the greater part of the old 
border may be removed, after the new plants are fairly 
established, the old roots being taken out with the soil; 
and fresh compost may be introduced in place of the 
old, begining with a border only three feet wide as at 
first. Thus we have, under this system, a constant, 
never ending, renewal of wood, roots and border, from 
year to year, and from one period of time to another, 
as required by the condition of the vines, keeping the 
roots always near the surface of the earth, in a soil of 
well regulated temperature, and in every desirable respect 
under perfect control. 

Note on " Stopping." — In stopping the laterals, as directed 
in this work, it will be understood that they are not to be kept 
shortened to one joint, but they are to be stopped once in three 
or four weeks, according to the rapidity of growth, making four 
or five stops in a season, and of course forming four or five 
joints on each lateral, leaving one new leaf on every joint each 
time of stopping. 



The Hot-House. 



The renewal system of grape culture may be applied 
to the Hot-house iu precisely the same way as to the 
vineyard and Cold Grapery. The design of this work 
does not permit us to give detailed instruction in the 
general management of the hot-house, and we shall 
therefore only say that in houses with very long rafters, 
say fifteen to twenty feet, the weaker kinds of grapes 
will not probably grow strong enough, upon this system, 
to fruit them the whole length of the rafter the first 
year or two, but they should be cut back in proportion 
to their strength. Some of the strong canes can be 
fruited the second season, half way up the house, say 
ten feet. Others, if weaker, should be cut back to four 
or six feet of fruiting wood. The second time of fruit- 
ing, the weaker vines can be extended to ten feet, and 
the third time the entire length of the rafter. 

In small hot-houses, with a rafter only eight or ten 
feet long, the canes may be planted in the spring, and 
one-half of them (as before directed,) may be fruited the 
entire length of the rafter the second year. Small 
houses, with rafters only six or eight feet long, are the 
best size for early forcing. 

(73) 



Injurious effect of deep, rich Borders, 
and deep planting in Vineyards. 



The " Ohio German System," and indeed all other 
systems of grape culture practised or advocated in this 
country, are based upon the plan of deep, rich borders, 
and deep trenching and heavy manuring for vineyards. 
Indeed, so far do some of the Ohio writers carry this 
doctrine, that they advise the cultivator to " cut off the 
roots of the vines near the surface of the ground, and 
for four or five inches below the surface, that the roots, 
while the vines are young, may be established at the 
proper depth j" that is, we presume, as deeply as possi- 
ble. (See It. Buchanan on Grape Culture, pages 16, 
17.) A more absurd or injurious practice could 
scarcely be conceived. We should rather advise that 
all roots which penetrate more than five inches below 
the surface should be cut off, and that the surface roots 
be preserved. 

Mr. Reemelin, of Ohio, whose treatise on the vine is 
well known, seems to be a little dubious about the merits 
of the root-pruning practice above described. He says : 
" I doubt the propriety of going down so far and cutting 

(74) 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 75 

off the roots. I have taken up many grape vines, from 
five to ten years old, and I can say, from practical ex- 
perience, that those vines were the thriftiest upon whose 
stem not only the foot-roots, but the side-roots were in 
good condition. " Mr. R. adds that he " considers it of 
first importance that the foot-roots should penetrate 
deeply." 

In our opinion, deep borders and deep planting con- 
stitute two of the greatest errors now existing in grape 
culture. We think no border should be made more 
than two feet deep, and no vineyard soil should be made 
rich to a greater depth than eighteen inches, or trenched 
for any other purpose than to render it open and porous. 
No vine should be planted more than four to eight 
inches deep, and instead of making any effort to induce 
the roots to go down deeper than that, every effort 
should be made to keep them within four inches of the 
surface ) and as soon as the roots are found to penetrate 
to the depth of three feet, we would advise the vine to 
be renewed by layers. We will guarantee that if a trial 
be made, near Cincinnati, where the grape rot prevails 
so badly, by planting the Catawba grape on the surface 
of a rock, in four inches of soil, and well mulched winter 
and summer, a good crop of grapes will be obtained, and 
that the rot will never be seen on a vine so planted — 
nor upon any other vine planted shallow, in a porous 
soil, and properly mulched. 

It is frequently stated, by writers on grape culture, 
that in many parts of Europe they spade up the ground 



76 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

for vineyards, from two to five feet deep. Mr. Reenie- 
lin, of Ohio, says so in his Vine Dresser's Manual. 
This may be true, in some instances, but if true, it does 
not by any means prove that it is best to induce the 
vines to root so deeply. It cannot, however, be the ge- 
neral custom, for two reasons; first, the people in Spain, 
and some other countries, are too indolent and too poor 
to expend so much labor on the preparation of the vine- 
yard ; and secondly, the nature of the rocky soil on the 
hill-sides, where most of the vineyards are located, does 
not admit of such deep culture. Mr. Redding, whose trea- 
tise on Modern Wines is a standard English authority 
on this subject, says, that at Malaga, in Spain, where 
the most delicious wine is produced, " most of the vines 
flourish in about eighteen inches of a rich loam or 
mould, upon a blue shaly substratum, or rocky forma- 
tion. The vineyards are, many of them, situated at a 
great height above the sea, where the earth about the 
vines must be carefully secured/' (so little is there of it, 
and so loosely does it lie on the rocks, we presume.) 
Redding, in his interesting treatise, gives many other 
instances of shallow soils which produce large crops of 
grapes, and the best of wine. 

The effect of a deep, rich border in the vinery, for 
the first two or three years, is very gratifying to the 
cultivator. The first year the vine makes a strong, 
rampant growth, and fine foliage, and continues to grow 
in this luxuriant way for two years longer. The owner 
of the vines, and the gardener, are delighted with their 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 77 

success. The border is deep, and rich, and the vines 
are truly magnificent. Such a border as that cannot 
assuredly give out, for it gets more rich food every year, 
and vines of such luxuriance certainly cannot meet with 
check or disaster. So they reason. 

But sometimes in the third year, they begin to dis- 
cover that there is something the matter with the vines. 
The bunches are large, the berries are large, but the 
foliage begins to decline a little, and the fruit does not 
color quite so well as usual. 

The next year or two, the vines continue to produce 
large wood, but they break in the spring badly, the 
wood being immature, and are much subject to mildew. 
The roots have now penetrated too deeply to maintain 
a healthy relation to the top of the vine. 

In the fifth year the fruit sometimes scarcely colors 
at all ; the berries remain red, and a great portion of 
them shank. 

During the sixth and seventh years, the vines in 
deep, rich borders begin to decline very rapidly. The 
leaves, instead of being, as before, a foot or fifteen 
inches in diameter, will often be seen no larger than 
maple leaves j and thus the work of destruction goes on 
till the eighth and ninth years, (when the vines, if pro- 
perly managed, ought to be in the greatest perfection,) 
and then, as we often see in deep borders, they nearly 
die out, and become entirely useless. This is the his- 
tory of such borders, and of deep planting, in vineries 
all around Philadelphia. 



78 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

In contrast to this common system of culture, we will 
present an experiment tried by Mr. Fleming, of Eng- 
land, a well known grape grower, to resuscitate one of 
these decaying vineries, deeply planted in a rich, deep 
border, as published in the Gardener's Chronicle. 

Mr. Fleming had the care of a vinery, which was 
much subject to mildew; the grapes never colored well; 
the leaves were small and burnt ; the grapes did not 
mature. 

This ill success was, at first, attributed to the old 
crown glass, with which the house was covered. This 
glass was removed, and the house was glazed with the 
best horticultural sheet glass, rolled, to destroy the 
focus, but with no good result. They then put on a 
ridge and furrow roof, but with no perceptible improve- 
ment in the condition of the vines. It was at last con- 
ceded that the defect must be in the border. 

Mr. Fleming then commenced at the foot of the 
house, and very carefully took out all the soil and roots, 
down to the drainage ; and as he raised the roots of 
the vines, tied them up in damp moss, and suspended 
them from the front of the house. He thus entirely re- 
moved the old border, and all the roots of the vines; 
re-concreted the bottom of the border; laid a new drain- 
age, well secured ; put in a fresh border, not very rich, 
but chiefly composed of fresh, virgin soil, with a little 
bone dust and well rotted manure; spread out the roots 
of the vines upon the surface of the border, and covered 
them with two inches of soil, well mulched. 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 79 

Now mark the result. This experiment was per- 
formed late in September, after a crop had been taken 
off. The vines were in leaf, and the leaves scarcely 
flagged during the whole operation, although the vines 
were not cut back any more than they would have been 
if not lifted, but were pruned in the usual way, and al- 
lowed to fruit the next season, the whole length of the 
canes. The vines broke rather weak, about as they had 
done for some years previously, but increased in sub- 
stance and strength rapidly before the bunches appear- 
ed ; the bunches elongated to an enormous size, and the 
vines perfected a crop of grapes which took the first 
premium at the fall exhibition in the Crystal Palace at 
Sydenham, against all the best vineries in Great Brit- 
ain ! So much for shallow planting in a border mode- 
rately rich. We feel sure that this is the best practice, 
and that gardeners everywhere must sooner or later 
come to it, and all vine-growers also, both in-doors and 
out. 

The reason why vines do not thrive for a number of 
years, in deep borders, is this : it is impossible to pre- 
serve an equal degree of temperature, and an equal 
action, between the roots and the tops of the canes. For 
instance, the tops of the canes start early in the spring, 
both in the vineyard and in the vinery, long before the 
soil or the border becomes warmed to the depth of two 
or three feet, and before the roots are. properly excited 
into action, and hence a great draught is made upon the 
resources of the vine before it is properly supplied with 



80 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

sap. Again, in the fall, the action of the roots, excited 
by the warmth of the soil or border, continues long after 
the tops ought to be at rest, and a late growth of succu- 
lent, immature wood, is the result. Where the roots of 
vines extend from a hot-house into a deep outside bor- 
der, the effect is even worse than in the vineyard. In 
all cases, however, deep planting will produce rot, mil- 
dew, shanking, and final destruction of the vines. 



PART II. 

Bright's Kenewal System of Grape 
Culture. 



Another year of experience, in the cultivation of 
the vine, in the grapery and the vineyard, has confirm- 
ed us in our opinion of the superiority of the system of 
grape culture which we have described and advocated 
in the first part of this work. 

We have now several large houses under our care, 
both forcing houses and cold graperies, and several 
thousand native vines, and we employ no other system 
of growing and fruiting them than that detailed in the 
foregoing pages; nor can we discover any reason for 
malting any other than inside borders, in all vineries. 

That this method of managing the grape vine is a 
great improvement upon all former systems and prac- 
tice, we feel well assured, and we again urge it upon the 
attention of the horticultural community, with increased 
confidence in its value. 

«•> (81) 



82 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

As soon as the system shall have been sufficiently 
tested, and shall have been seen in operation by a suffi- 
cient number of intelligent and practical persons, and 
its fruits shall have been exhibited at our horticultural 
fairs, grape-growers will become aroused to the conside- 
ration of its merits ; and we think it not too much to 
expect, that this will yet be the universal American 
system of grape culture. We say this, not with the 
vanity of an author, or inventor, but with the calm 
judgment of an experienced professional grape-grower, 
who expects to make his living by growing grapes and 
vines for market. 

It would seem to be a simple thing to grow a grape 
vine, to prune, to water, and to fruit it; but somehow 
or other the world has contrived to make a great mys- 
tery of it. Persons unacquainted with the culture of 
the vine, we feel certain, will never learn how to man- 
age it, by reading a strictly professional treatise alone, 
without the aid of a practical assistant ; and even many 
practical men will often fail to understand a writer cor- 
rectly. 

Since the publication of our work on the grape, we 
have met with a great many very intelligent persons, 
grape-growers, writers, critics of the system even, who 
evidently did not understand our views, although they 
assumed to sit in judgment upon the merits of the sys- 
tem. We have explained the matter to such persons, 
in the hot-house and in the field, and from the absurd 
and stupid questions which they asked, we could easily 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. $3 

perceive that they did not comprehend the true nature 
of our method of culture. 

How, then, if professional grape-growers cannot un- 
derstand or appreciate a new method of managing the 
grape, shall we expect amateurs and other unprofessional 
persons, to learn and practise our new system ? We do 
not expect it. We are prepared to find the public slow 
to adopt our plan of grape culture ; but it will come at 
last. It is a really good thing , and fruit-growers will, 
ere long, find it out. We feel sure of that. 



Improved Composition of Grape 
Borders. 



Since the publication of the first part of this work, 
we have made a radical change in the composition of 
our grape borders. Our mind had been led into this 
new direction before the publication of the first edition 
of this work, but we were not sufficiently convinced of 
the correctness of our views to justify us in making them 
public. We have now tested our new method of com- 
posting grape borders, for two years, and we feel per- 
fectly assured that it is a valuable improvement. 

Five years ago, it was the almost universal practice, 
in composting grape borders, to introduce into the mix- 
ture, or to place in the bottom of the trench, all sorts 
of rich nitrogeneous manures, such as night soil, slaugh- 
ter-house offal, and even large masses of animal flesh 
and raw bones, with comparatively fresh stable and hog 
manure. When it was discovered that such manures 
were injurious to the vine, the more judicious gardeners 
began to reject such substances, in the raw state, but 
advocated the use of them when « well decomposed." 
Amateurs, who depend upon books for information, still 

(84) 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 85 

continue to employ the blood, offal, raw bones and fresh, 
manure. In common with the leading grape-growers of 
Europe and America, we had, long before the publica- 
tion of our work, made our borders of loam and well 
rotted manure ; but we were gradually led to discard 
from our composts nearly all sorts of animal manures, 
and even carbonaceous substances. We now make our 
grape borders of good loam, road sand, pulverized lime 
rubbish, and fine bone-dust. Ammonia, super-phosphate 
of lime and potash, we supply by top-dressing, and by 
liquid manures. Tartaric acid, if used, may be applied 
in the same way. 

Our chief objection to animal manures, in the grape 
border, is this : No matter how well decomposed they 
may be, as commonly used, they will continue to un- 
dergo constant decomposition for years, both in winter 
and summer. While the roots of the vine are in an 
active state, during the growing season, the effect of 
rich decomposing manures may not be very injurious; 
but when, in the fall, the vine goes into a state of rest, 
its roots have no power to defend themselves, by vital 
action, against the decomposing or destructive power 
of animal substances, in a state of chemical change, and 
hence become blackened, rotted and diseased. Where 
water, in excess, and frost unite with rich decaying sub- 
stances in the border, as they often do, the destructive 
action will be far greater than in a well drained border ; 
but in all cases, the injury caused in this way, by rich 
borders, is too great and too evident to be disregarded. 



86 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

Now, in simple, sweet, natural loam and sand, with 
only the addition of old lime rubbish, the roots of the 
vine, in a state of rest, suffer no injury from chemical 
changes in the border. As they go to rest, fresh, clean, 
living fibres, so they lie all winter, in a natural soil, not 
in a muck and manure bed ; and in the spring they start 
into life and action, without the loss of a fraction of 
their former growth, or the minutest fibre of their finest 
feeders. Dig up the roots of a vine from one of your 
old-fashioned dung borders, in winter, and you will find 
the roots blackened, rotted, cankered, covered with ex- 
crescenses and fungi, and otherwise variously diseased. 
The vital powers of the vine, it is true, will partially 
overcome these destructive agencies in the spring, but 
of course, the vine will exhibit a loss of health and 
vigor, which no kind of culture can correct or repair. 

Let us ask the question, Does the vine naturally grow 
in a dung heap? No, says the amateur; but my bor- 
der is not a dung heap, but a well rotted compost. We 
reply that, in our opinion, no compost of animal and 
stable manures, that was ever put into a grape border, 
was ever sufficiently well rotted to be adapted to that 
purpose, for reasons which we will give hereafter, when 
speaking of mere humus, or rotted manure and carbo- 
naceous matter. 

Our next objection to the use of animal manures, in 
the grape border, is this : They stimulate a late wood 
growth, long after the vine should be in a state of com- 
parative rest, so as to ripen its cane. We may take it 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 87 

as a positive rule, that the highest success in grape cul- 
ture, can never be attained, unless the foliage be pre- 
served till all the wood is well ripened, and then the 
leaves dry up and drop off in the natural way. In a 
rich, moist border, this happy, natural condition of the 
vine can never be attained, because the roots will con- 
tinue in action too late in the season, and the wood and 
foliage being freely supplied with sap, will not ripen 
naturally, before cold weather sets in, and hence the 
sad spectacle, which we so often see, of unripened wood 
and frosted leaves, in some of our most elegant and costly 
vineries. A border of simple loam, kept dry in the fall, 
by proper drainage, will have a very different effect on 
the vine. All the top-dressing and liquid manure will 
be exhausted before the close of the season, and the roots 
of the vine will be left in a dry, sweet, natural soil ; 
thus checking the flow of sap, and wood growth, and 
ripening both wood and foliage at pleasure. These 
desirable results can, of course, be most effectually at- 
tained by the use of inside borders; but if outside bor- 
ders be properly protected from excess of moisture, by 
a concrete bottom, and by shutters, they may be made to 
answer. 

In keeping a crop of grapes, as well as in growing 
vines, all these remarks apply, with even more force. 
Indeed, in rich, wet borders, grapes cannot possibly be 
kept after ripening, more than two or three weeks, while 
in dry, loam borders, they may be kept for as many 
months, if not longer. 



88 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

So far, in fact, hare we carried our notions of the 
simplicity required in the composition of grape borders, 
that we question whether any sort of carbonaceous mat- 
ter, such as rotted straw, or leaf mould, should be in- 
troduced into such composts, in any considerable quan- 
tity. When we were in England, a year ago, we asked 
Mr. Wilmot, a celebrated grape-grower, whose father 
and grandfather before him had always been engaged 
in grape culture, how he made his composts for borders. 
His reply was, " we have made grape borders of man- 
ure, &c, till we are tired of it; we do not like them; 
and now we use only loam, sand, lime rubbish and bone- 
dust/' We had previously come to a similar conclusion, 
but, of course, were not a little influenced by these opi- 
nions. 

As to the carbonaceous matter, we find that Dr. Lind- 
ley, the accomplished editor of the London Gardener's 
Chronicle, is of opinion that it exercises an influence 
very similar to that of rotted dung; or in other words, 
that rotted dung, straw and leaf mould, even when well 
decomposed, and converted into humus, cause the de- 
struction of delicate fibrous roots, especially in the pre- 
sence of moisture. Dr. Lindley makes the following 
just remarks upon the effects of humus, or carbonaceous 
matter in the grape border. 

" The vine is naturally a very long-lived plant ; under 
favorable conditions it exists for hundreds of years. 
Taking all things into consideration, few exotic plants, 
if any, are more enduring under vicissitudes of climate; 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 89 

and in addition, the vine lias too often to suffer great 
injuries from unskilful pruning. It requires plenty of 
moisture whilst growing, but it dislikes soil that is at 
any time saturated with water. A morass does not suit 
it. We do not mean to say that it was ever planted in 
a natural one, yet artificial compositions have been form- 
ed and placed in a position to acquire the nature of a 
morass, the principal character of which is water com- 
bined with humus. Instead of good turfy maiden loam, 
the soil for vine borders has been composed of rich hu- 
mus earth, with a large proportion of manure, which 
ultimately turns to humus. This is very like the sub- 
stance of a morass; one essential element only being 
wanting, namely, water. Dig a pit, three feet deep, and 
throw such a composition into it. Water will naturally 
find its way into the hole, and then we have a very toler- 
able imitation of a morass. In the same composition, 
freed from stagnant moisture, the roots of vines would 
exist, if it had been raised, for instance, above the gene- 
ral level of the surrounding surface; but when sunk 
below this, the roots perish." 

With these remarks we entirely agree, and hence we 
have, for nearly two years past, formed all our large 
borders, especially those partially outside the house, of 
half good loam, from an old but fertile pasture, and 
nearly half road sand, or fine, soft, rotten rock, with the 
addition of a little pulverized lime rubbish, from old 
walls and ceilings, and a little fine bone-dust. Super- 
phosphate of lime, in compost, we reject, on account of 



90 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

the sulphuric acid; and ashes, on account of its caustic 
nature. These last substances, and all other manures, 
we apply by top-dressing, and in a liquid form. We 
feel well assured, that this is a great improvement, and 
indeed, the only safe plan in making vine borders. In 
small inside borders, where the moisture is under per- 
fect control, we might use a little well rotted dung, and 
good leaf mould, in compost ; but we think we should 
prefer to omit the manure altogether. 

In confirmation of the positions assumed in the pre- 
ceding remarks, we quote a few passages from late arti- 
cles in the London Gardener's Chronicle, which may be 
considered the very highest authority on this subject. 

One writer says, that after all that has been written 
on vine-growing, the whole matter may be comprised 
in a nut-shell. Two points, he adds, cover the whole 
matter. 

<'< 1. The texture of the border should be such as not 
to injure, by decomposition or otherwise, the fibrous 
roots which tenant it ; while the material of which it is 
composed should be of the most 'permanently nutritious 
character. 

"2. As much foliage should be allowed, as can well 
be exposed to the light." 

The editor of the Gardener's Chronicle observes, that 
the vine is simple in its tastes, clean in its habits, and 
abhors garbage. It loves free air, a warm, rocky soil, 
and, in the latter part of the season, a fierce sun. Give 
it these, and it is all it demands. He adds : 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 91 

"If we look around, we find examples enough, some 
of which are to be found iu our own columns. The 
fine grapes grown by the late John Wilmot, of Isleworth, 
had their roots in clay, cinders, and hard rubbish. Mr. 
George Crawshay's vines grew in a gravel walk. Those 
of Mr. Glendinning, at Turnham Green, had nothing 
to feed upon, except a pathway of stifiish clay and com- 
mon black garden mould. The great vine at Cumber- 
land Lodge, near Windsor, perhaps the finest now in 
England, draws its supplies from a bed of hard sand. 
Nor do we believe, that when in its glory, the old vine 
at Hampton Court was better fed, for the notion that its 
roots were in a sewer is, as far as we have been able to 
discover, wholly unsupported by evidence. A still more 
recent example of the error, in supposing that the vine 
requires the amazing mixtures that have been prescribed 
for it, is afforded by the plants now growing in the great 
conservatory of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick. 
We suppose that no one will deny their being in the 
highest health, or their crop all that can be desired; 
there are those, indeed, and men of no small authority 
in such matters, who pronounce it too heavy. And in 
what have their roots been growing ? At first in loam 
and chopped turf, with a little charred earth and some 
manure, just to give them a start; and now in a bank 
of gravel, the pebbles of which arc held together by 
soapy loam mixed with garden mould. To be sure, the 
bank is warm and dry, and high above the surrounding 
level : but that is precisely what the vine really does 



92 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

require; and into it the roots have already penetrated 
for ten feet. The fact is, that any naturally good soil 
affords the vine all the food it wants, provided the other 
conditions of vigorous growth are carefullv ensured and 
skilfully maintained." 



Cold Graperies. 



"We are of opinion that no cold graperies — that is, 
graperies with no means of creating artificial heat — 
will ever be perfectly successful, as far north as the lati- 
tude of Philadelphia, or anywhere else, if subjected to 
the action of frost during the growing season. What 
we want is, a cold grapery with the means of creating a 
little heat, sufficient to keep out late frosts in the sprint, 
and sudden frosts in the fall, and cold, damp atmosphere 
in summer. We must have the temperature of the at- 
mosphere, at such times, under perfect control. Even 
in summer, after the first of July, w'hen a cold storm 
comes on, and mildew threatens, a little dry heat to 
counteract the excess of moisture, and promote a circu- 
lation of air in the vinery, is highly useful. In the fall, 
when early frosts occur, before the foliage has fallen off, 
or the wood ripened, a little fire-heat to preserve the 
foliage, will often prolong the season for a month or 
more. We hold, that the most injurious thing that 
can happen to a vine in the grapery, is to have its foli- 
age destroyed by frost before the wood is perfectly ripe 
If the tips of the laterals are unripe, the new wood on 

(93) 



94 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

the cane must be likewise immature, and the roots them- 
selves must be in the same crude and unripe condition.- 

To grow a perfect vine, we think the foliage must be 
protected and sustained until the last leaf on the tip of 
the last lateral shall become fully ripe, and shall dry up 
and turn yellow, and drop off, in a perfectly natural and 
healthy manner; and the entire wood and roots of the 
vine must be permitted to ripen in the same way, free 
from all checks, and especially from all attacks of frost. 
The melancholy spectacle which we saw last November, 
of cold graperies, in full foliage, suddenly frosted and 
mildewed, with a large portion of the laterals half-ripen- 
ed, convinced us that it was useless to attempt the cul- 
tivation of the vine in cold houses, without a little heat 
in them on such occasions. 

How can this heat be most economically and effici- 
ently produced ? We think a common furnace and flue, 
or hot water pipes may be absolutely necessary, to do 
the work effectually, — and we shall soon construct a 
cheap heating apparatus for this purpose. We are now 
trying, in a lean-to vinery one hundred feet long, the 
new gas-consuming air-tight stoves, but cannot yet say 
how they will answer. We think they may do much 
good, but we fear they are not quite powerful enough. 
But heat your vinery how you will, we think you must 
have the means of heating even the cold vinery, when 
required, or the highest degree of success cannot be 
attained. 



Management of Moisture in the Vinery. 



The right management of moisture in the atmosphere 
of the vinery, is a point of the first importance. Proper 
ventilation, to insure a slight circulation and change of 
air, is no doubt requisite ; but few gardeners in Ame- 
rica now admit much, if any, bottom or front ventila- 
tion, in the early part of the season, but obtain all 
necessary change of air by means of the top or back 
ventilators. In England much more air is given, be- 
cause the external atmosphere is usually very moist. 
In this country, however, where we have many weeks 
of hot, dry, windy weather, every season, it is abso- 
lutely necessary to keep the bottom ventilators, at such 
times, constantly closed, and to preserve, by all possible 
means, a very moist atmosphere in the house. To ac- 
complish this object, we have heretofore recommended 
the use of large shallow evaporating troughs, running 
the whole length of the house, partially filled with water, 
which we have found of much service, not only in the 
production of moisture, but also in furnishing a large 
supply of warm water for syringing and watering the 
plants. 

But we now go further, and recommend the floor of 

(95) 



96 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

the house to be formed of water-proof concrete, so as 
to flood all the paths with water, on hot dry days. In 
houses constructed with inside borders elevated above 
the floor, we have had the floor so constructed that we 
can flood the entire house, — not only the paths, but the 
space under the borders, — with water, several inches 
deep, when necessary, so that we present, within the 
house, a sheet of water equal to the surface of glass in 
the roof, and the vines literally grow on islands situated 
above a miniature lake. The advantage to be derived 
from this arrangement of the house, will be apparent to 
every grape-grower who appreciates the necessity of con- 
stant moisture in the atmosphere of the vinery, during 
our hot, dry summers. 

It is a well known fact, that the best grapes in all 
parts of the world, are grown on islands, or in the vici- 
nity of large bodies of water, where the natural mois- 
ture of the atmosphere counteracts the injurious effects 
of excessive heat. Without mentioning any foreign in- 
stances of the truth of this position, we will only call 
attention to the vineyards in the valley of the Ohio river, 
and especially to the success which has attended the 
grape culture on Kelley's island, in Lake Erie, near San- 
dusky City. The best native grapes ever produced in 
the United States, have been brought from Kelley's 
Island, and the vines there have suffered less than any 
others from mildew or other diseases. 

We consider light, heat, air and moisture, in proper 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 97 

proportions, as necessary to perfection in grape culture ; 
but we think that moisture does not, in general, receive 
the attention it deserves. When the vines flag, on a 
hot day, it is of no service to admit more hot, dry air 
into the house, by opening the ventilators; but the house 
should be closed, and the moisture should be increased 
till the atmosphere is absolutely saturated, if possible, 
to prevent evaporation from the foliage, and to promote 
absorption. This is commonly done by sprinkling a 
board or earthen floor with water. But in such cases 
the water is soon absorbed or runs off, and although the 
house may be somewhat cooled by the operation, the 
moisture in the air will be but slightly increased. A 
very injurious effect also follows. The boards or earthen 
floor being frequently wet in this way, a green slime, or 
fungus growth, soon forms on the surface, which is not 
only very unsightly and disagreeable, but, we have little 
doubt, increases the tendency to the production of cryp- 
togamous plants and mildew, if it does not directly 
generate these destructive forms of vegetable life. 

Now, in our opinion, the entire inside of the grape 
house should be as sweet, clean, and free from all for- 
eign vegetable matter as the floor of the nicest dairy. 
There should be nothing like green slime, or mould, on 
the walls or floor. The necessity for constant sprink- 
ling, in hot days, is evident ; but with a solid concrete 
floor, a lake of pure water can be produced, which will 
save the labor of sprinkling, and when drawn off into 

7 



98 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

a proper tank, (if not consumed by evaporation,) the 
floor can be scrubbed and kept as clean as a model 
dairy. We consider this a great improvement in the 
construction of vineries. The water would, of course, 
be drawn off into a tank at night, and on damp, cloudy 
days. 



Bottom Heat in Vine Borders, 



Grape-growers in England have, during the last 
year, introduced hot-water pipes under their vine bor- 
ders, with a view to create a bottom heat equal to the 
temperature of the house, with excellent results. The 
vines not only became more healthy, but the grapes 
ripened several weeks earlier than in borders not so 
heated. 

We allude to this matter, not so much for the pur- 
pose of advocating the introduction of bottom heat in 
common borders, as with a view to direct the attention 
of the reader to the fact, that our inside detached bor- 
ders, even in the cold grapery, are better than outside 
borders with the addition of bottom heat. 

An inside border, detached from the front wall, and 
from the floor of the house, with hot air passing all 
around it, will be but a few degrees cooler than the at- 
mosphere of the house at any time, and when heated by 
the sun's rays, will no doubt retain that heat for a long 
time. Bottom heat is in fact obtained, in such borders, 
without the cost of artificial heat. To introduce hot- 
water pipes under old outside, borders, will be found 

(99) 



100 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

almost impossible ; and even if they be introduced, it 
will be a very expensive piece of work, and will of course 
greatly increase the cost of heating the house. Flues 
will not answer at all, on account of the danger of leak- 
age, and the difficulty of repairing them. 

When inside detached borders are employed in the 
forcing house, the hot-water pipes or flues may be so 
placed as to cause a constant circulation of heated air 
under the border, through the air conductors ; and thus 
all desirable bottom heat may be obtained, with no more 
expense of construction or fuel than in the common 
forcing house. The pipes or flues will always be with- 
in reach, and can be easily repaired, while the results 
will be quite as good as if the pipes were introduced 
immediately under the border. 

This suggestion in reference to the operation of inside 
borders, is a very important one at this time, when grape 
growers everywhere are becoming convinced of the great 
imperfection of common outside borders ', and it exhibits 
the comparative merit and economy of our inside bor- 
ders in a striking light. 



Grape Vines in Pots. 



We are disposed to modify a little what we said about 
pot vines in the first part of this work. We now think 
the roots of pot vines maybe permitted to extend through 
the bottom of the pots, into a border, after the manner 
of trees in the orchard house, with advantage. The 
pots may also be plunged one-third their depth into the 
border. This will give them more food, and will save 
much trouble in watering and manuring them. After 
a crop of fruit has been taken off, and before the foliage 
has fallen, pot vines so treated may be root-pruned with 
safety, (being lifted out of the border,) and the canes 
may be cut back to two or three eyes, at the close of the 
season, just as if they were grown in the border. The 
next season, of course, new canes will be grown for 
future fruiting; and in this way, we have no doubt, pot 
vines may be preserved for an indefinite period of time, 
without re-potting. A piece of the main stem, contain- 
ing one or two buds, and the mass of the main roots 
undisturbed, are all that is required to produce a new 
and vigorous fruiting rod. The main roots will soon 
create new feeders, and plenty of spongioles to gather 

(101) 



102 BRIGHT O.N GRAPE CULTURE. 

food for the plant. The same plan can be pursued in 
small inside borders. A portion of the border, and the 
roots of the vines, can be removed every year, fresh 
nutriment can be given, and new roots will be produced, 
near to the main stem, after every pruning. There is 
no more use in having long roots, with the spongioies 
ten or twenty feet from the main stem, than there is in 
growing fruit twenty or thirty feet from the roots, when 
all the grapes the vine can sustain can be placed within 
eight or ten feet of the roots. 

We formerly took great pride in growing seven pounds 
of grapes in a small pot, but we are now willing to ad- 
mit that there is convenience and profit in permitting 
the roots to extend into a border. 

We request the reader to observe particularly that 
root-pruning of the vine must be performed in the lat- 
ter part of the season, while there is still plenty of foli- 
age to assist in healing the wounds, and to promote the 
formation of new roots. A neglect of this rule, we 
think, would be almost fatal to the plant. 



Vine Dressing, Stopping, &c. 



In the management of native vines, in the field, last 
season, we found it convenient and useful to make a 
slight modification of our system, so far as stopping or 
pinching the laterals was concerned. We also fell into 
a method of managing the tip of the vine, not suggest- 
ed in the first part of this work. These are merely 
slight additions to our practice, not alterations of the 
principles of culture. 

The vines usually make a very strong and rapid growth 
in June, when we permit the laterals to extend to three 
or four, or even in some instances, to six or eight joints, 
without stopping. Too close stopping, at this season of 
rapid growth, may cause the main eyes to burst, arid 
thus injure the fruiting capacity of the cane. It is well, 
also, not to stop the top of the vine and the laterals at 
the same time. There must be an outlet for the sap, in 
the form of vegetable growth, somewhere. If the vine 
be stopped at six feet, and the laterals be stopped too 
severely, in the, period of most luxuriant growth, many 
of the main eyes will certainly be lost. But if a little 
discretion be used by the vine-dresser, at this time, as 
above directed, there will be no danger of destroying the 

(103) 



104 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

main buds. We can ourselves stop the most rampant 
native vine in June, strictly according to the severest 
rules of pot vine culture, without losing one of the main 
eyes, on a cane only three feet high ; but we have found 
that amateurs and inexperienced persons cannot do this; 
we therefore advise a larger latitude in stopping. A 
more careless mode of culture also saves time and labor, 
and we think the results will be nearly as good as if 
more carefully tended. 

After the laterals have extended to five or six joints, 
instead of pinching them at their points, we find it con- 
venient and perfectly safe, to break them back three or 
four joints at once, so as to give the plant a neater ap- 
pearance. In doing this, we are careful to break the 
laterals at the joints, or on the nodes, as botanists call 
the bunches at the joints, and at a place where a late- 
ral shoot has started, or a bud is just bursting, so that 
there may be no check in the growth of the main late- 
rals. All the young branches of a grape vine, break 
easily and squarely at the joints, if taken hold of close 
to the joint, and snapped off by a sudden movement of 
the hand. The joint heals over very soon, and no loss 
of sap, or bleeding, ensues. If a knife be used, the 
cut should be made close above the joint or node. 

The tip of the main cane, after being pinched in to 
a height of six feet, may be allowed to ramble five or six 
joints or more, hanging down carelessly from the top of 
the trellis, and may then be shortened, at the conveni- 
ence of the vine-dresser, back to the top of the trellis, by 



BRIGHT ON GRATE CULTURE. 105 

being broken off in the manner above stated. After 
the top of the cane has been shortened once or twice in 
this way, the growth of the vine will be somewhat check- 
ed by the advance of the season, and two or three shoots 
will start out from the top laterals, which will form suffi- 
cient outlets for the superabundant sap, without endan- 
gering the safety of the main eyes. 

We are the less solicitous about the careful stopping 
of the top and laterals of dwarf vines, grown upon our« 
system, because we find that a more careless method of 
working will better suit the majority of cultivators, while 
it will not, in all probability, materially affect the crop 
of fruit the next season. Indeed, it may be a question 
in vegetable physiology, hard to decide, except by care- 
ful practical experience, whether the vine should not be 
allowed to carry all the foliage it can, without too great 
an elongation of the main cane. Of course, if the late- 
rals be permitted to extend too far, the whole season, 
the main eyes will be weakened ; but we are now in 
favor of keeping all the foliage possible, without injury 
to the main buds. When we come to the matter of fruit- 
ing a vine, we prefer a short cane, say four to five feet 
long for native, and six to eight feet for foreign vines, 
with room on the trellis for an extension of the cane 
several feet beyond the fruit, in order to get as much 
foliage as possible, to assist in perfecting the crop. 

An abundance of foliage is also useful, in case of an 
attack of mildew; only a part of the leaves may be de- 



106 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

stroyed, and hence the injury will not be so great as it 
would be if the vines were more closely pruned. 

In the management of native vines, on the arbor or 
in the vineyard, we now say that it will be found con- 
venient and useful, in practice, not to stop the laterals, 
or the top of the vines, so closely or so carefully as we 
directed in the first part of this work, especially in June, 
or at the season of most luxuriant growth. But still 
avoid extremes. Too close stopping will endanger the 
safetj of the main eyes; a total want of care in stopping, 
will exhaust and weaken the main buds, and seriously 
affect the future crop. A sound discretion, in this mat- 
ter, will probably only be learned by experience. 

If any person shall tell the amateur that the difficulties 
in the way of dwarf culture, in respect to the preserva- 
tion of the main eyes, are too great to be surmounted 
by any but professional gardeners, we answer that such 
persons are either ignorant of the truth, or they wilfully 
falsify it. We had a large vineyard, this last sea- 
son, dressed in a very successful manner, by a young 
farmer, who had never seen a viue pruned before in his 
life, and who had only a few hours' instruction, after 
reading our book. We grant that a man must under- 
stand what he is to do before he attempts to manage 
grape vines, but when once understood, grape culture, 
after our method, is as simple as the culture of corn or 
potatoes. 



Length of Fruiting Canes. 



Our late experience in working vines upon the re- 
newal system, advocated in this work, has enabled us to 
reduce our method to definite rules, as to the length of 
fruiting canes, and the number of pounds or bunches of 
fruit to be obtained from each foot of fruiting wood. 

In the first place, we have adopted the rule, in cul- 
ture under glass, never to fruit a cane more than half 
the length of the rafter, no matter whether the rafter be 
eight feet or forty feet long; nor more than half the 
height of the trellis or arbor, in out-of-door work. 

When the vine is fruiting, the cane will of course be 
allowed to run up the remaining half of the rafter or 
trellis, and thus a fresh mass of foliage will be obtained, 
to assist in converting the sap into the elements of wood- 
fibre and fruit, to sustain and perfect the crop. The 
objection has been made to our system of culture, that 
we propose to prune too closely, and do not admit suffi- 
cient foliage upon our canes. To meet this objection, 
we have adopted the above rule, which in no wise 
changes our original plan — it merely improves it. 

If objectors now say that we not only lose the use of 
half our vines every year, but we also reduce them to 

(K»7) 



108 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

half the usual fruiting length, we answer, that we can 
take from any vine, three to five feet in length, all the 
fruit that any ordinary vine ought to be permitted to 
bear, or all it can bear without injury; and as much 
good fruit, in fact, as any cultivator can get from any 
length of cane. 

The portion of new wood above the fruit will furnish 
a magnificent canopy of foliage. One good leaf, we all 
know, is worth a dozen small, imperfect ones, the same 
as one good berry is of more value than a dozen poor 
ones. The foliage of a vine should be well developed, 
and so abundant as to cover the entire glass, without 
crowding or lying with one leaf over another. Tt should 
be one grand mass of shade, without confusion. This 
object will be fully attained by pruning the cane only 
half the length of the rafter. 

The principles of vegetable physiology set forth by 
Dr. Lindley, in another section of this work, are per- 
fectly met by this method of treatment, and all the scien- 
tific and practical requirements of the best cultivators 
are amply fulfilled. 

In culture under glass, when strong two year old canes 
have been planted in the border, we stop the vines the 
first season at the height of about four feet, in order to 
consolidate the fruiting wood up to that point; and at 
the close of the season we cut back the canes to that 
point, i. e. y to four feet. 

The second season, if the vines have made a good 
growth, we fruit one-half of them. Canes four feet 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. ]09 

long, one year planted, will bear without injury, say ten 
pounds of fruit each, or five to seven bunches, accord- 
ing to the sorts. The Syrian and Nice may be permit- 
ted to bear two bunches; the Black Hamburg eight; 
the White Frontignan six or eight; the Muscat of Alex- 
andria four; the Wests' St. Peters six to eight. 

The canes of the second season's growth, (once cut 
back after being grown the first season,) should be stop- 
ped at half the length of the rafter, whatever its length 
may be, to perfect the fruiting wood as much as possi- 
ble ; and at the end of the season, as before directed, 
they should be cut back to the point of stoppage. The 
following season, being the third after planting, the 
canes, if well managed, will be nearly in the zenith of 
their fruiting power; and the following quantities of 
fruit may be taken, viz., from a cane four feet long, 
rafter eight feet, sixteen pounds of fruit; from a cane 
five feet long, rafter ten feet, twenty pounds ; from a 
cane seven feet six inches long, rafter fifteen feet, thirty 
pounds; cane ten feet long, rafter twenty feet, forty 
pounds ; or in other words, four pounds of fruit, as a 
general rule, from each foot of fruiting cane. 

The third time of fruiting, a larger crop may be ob- 
tained from some sorts, and some remarkably vigorous 
canes, but it will generally be found injurious to vines 
to tax their powers beyond these limits. We have known 
seventy bunches of grapes to be produced on five feet 
of cane, but it was at the expense of the vitality of the 
vine, and the size and flavor of the fruit. Thirty pounds 



HO BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

of perfect fruit is a good crop for any ordinary vine ; 
and if this quantity can be obtained, season after sea- 
son, for a long period of years, without injury to the 
vines, we ought to be satisfied. 

In the vineyard culture of native grapes, and upon 
arbors and trellises, we cannot fix so precisely the quan- 
tity or weight of grapes that may or should be taken 
from a foot of fruiting wood. But we still advise the 
canes to be stopped at half the height of the trellis or 
arbor, each season, and cut back to the same point for 
fruiting, as directed for foreign vines under glass, never 
allowing fruit on more than half the height of the trel- 
lis or arbor. There are so many new varieties, and they 
differ so much in natural capacity, and in the quality of" 
the stock, that we can scarcely give any specific rules 
that could be applied to these new sorts. From five to 
seven pounds will probably be an average crop from a 
good vineyard cane. 



Kestoration of Old Canes in the 
Vinery. 



[The following article was communicated by the au- 
thor of this work, to the Gardener's Monthly, in Janu- 
ary last. The suggestions which it contains, bearing 
upon the philosophy of our system of grape culture, we 
believe to be of much value and interest.] 

Ever since I proposed my renewal system of grape 
culture, (viz., the cutting down of the entire cane after 
every fruiting season,) the experience of others, as well 
as myself, has been constantly tending to show that my 
advice in this respect was good, and grape-growers in 
England and America have been rapidly adopting a 
similar practice. In the last number of the Gardener's 
Monthly we are told that Mr. John Ellis, (" Fox Mea- 
dow/') finding his vines gradually declining, had de- 
cided to renew them by cutting down the canes after 
three years of spur pruning, in order to re-invigorate 
the vines. Now, if it is good practice to cut down the 
vines after they arc exhausted, and when their power of 
producing good canes, as well as good fruit, is seriously 
impaired, would it not be better practice to cut them 

an) 



112 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

down after every fruiting season, while they are in per- 
fect health and vigor, and still able to throw up strong 
and perfect fruiting rods ? Why push the fruiting 
powers of the vine to utter exhaustion before renewal ? 
You would not drive a good horse thus. 

But the most significant and valuable testimony in 
favor of my renewal plan may be found in the London 
Gardener's Chronicle, edited by Dr. Lindley, Novem- 
ber 24th, 1860, in an article headed "How Strong Vines 
become "Weak," evidently from the accomplished pen of 
the editor himself. The writer notices the gene-rally- 
acknowledged fact that vines, in nearly all instances, in 
culture under glass, begin to decline in fruiting capacity 
as soon as the canes reach the top of the house. The 
cause of this, he says, is not generally old age, nor heavy 
cropping, nor the state of the soil, nor want of good 
management ; but it is to be found in the fact that when, 
the cane ceases to extend and to produce fresh masses 
of foliage, the amount of sap elaborated by the leaves is 
not sufficient to form a new layer of young wood over 
the surface of the old cane and roots, and at the same 
time to produce vigorous young shoots and a good crop 
of grapes. 

Dr. Lindley being an admitted authority in vegetable 
physiology, I think his views will command much atten- 
tion. To my mind, his reasoning is very conclusive and 
satisfactory. In commenting upon the condition of a 
vine after it has reached the top of the house, and can 
be extended no further, he says : 



BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. U3 

" Whilst the amount of foliage continues to be every 
year about the same, an equal quantity of sap will be 
annually elaborated. But the thickening of the stem 
and roots is progressive ; and it is evident that as their 
thickness increases, the layers of young wood must an- 
nually become thinner and thinner. A stem two inches 
in circumference, and ten feet in length, has two hun- 
dred and forty square inches of surface; but this, in a 
stem six inches in circumference, is seven hundred and 
twenty square inches, orthree times as much as in the 
former case; therefore, with the same quantity of elabo- 
rated sap for its formation, the layer of new wood can- 
not be more than one-third of the thickness of that de- 
posited on the less surface. 

" Besides the quantity required to overlay the greater 
thickness of stem measured at a regular part, there are 
large spur protuberances to cover, and likewise wounds 
from pruning. All these go far towards doubling the 
surface over which the new matter prepared by the leaves 
has annually to be spread ; and as the latter cannot be in- 
creased, the further increase of foliage being limited, 
whilst the demand is continually on the increase, it fol- 
lows that the layer of new wood must necessarily be 
very thin ; and when that is the case, the shoots cannot 
be otherwise than exceedingly weak, and the bunches 
small in a corresponding degree. 

Ce Having thus endeavored to point out a cause which 
uniformly tends to reduce vines to a state of weakuess, 
it remains to indicate the remedy. This is very simple; 

8 



114 BKIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

for we have only to remove the old wood by cutting 
back as near to the ground as can properly be done. 
The result of this will be a vigorous growth of young 
rods, which will bear as vines ought to bear." 

Here is my renewal system, precisely. As soon as 
the vine has reached the top of the house, and can ex- 
tend no further, it must decline, and hence should be 
cut down, if we wish to maintain its full fruiting capa- 
city. But you may say that it may be worked upon the 
spur system for two or three years before it reaches the 
top of the house, and hence, even on Dr. Lindley's 
theory, it is not necessary to cut it down oftener than 
once in three years. I grant that the vine may be so 
spurred and fruited and so renewed, with fair results ; 
but I assert that I can obtain better crops and better 
fruit from shorter canes, renewed after every fruiting 
season, and that vines so treated will not only remain in 
undiminished health and vigor for an unlimited number 
of years, but that they will, likewise, gain additional 
vigor and capacity every time they are cut down. 

I am further of opinion, that when root-pruning is 
performed simultaneously with the cutting down of the 
'canes, that a new set of roots will be obtained, of as much 
value, in respect to the fruiting power of the vine, as the 
new wood. This last idea, however, is only an opinion ; 
I have not yet put it into practice, but shall do so very 
soon, especially in the inside borders. 



APPENDIX. 



Inside Borders — Shallow Planting. 

The views presented in this work, in respect to the 
construction of vine borders and shallow planting, may 
seem to demand some defence and explanation beyond 
what is contained in the body of the essay. We con- 
sider the positions assumed, and the practice advised, 
highly important to fruit growers, and we can show that 
although seemingly new, and esteemed by many good 
cultivators of questionable merit, they are really endorsed 
by several of the leading horticultural writers in the 
United States. 

The practice of deep planting and heavy manuring, 
for fruit trees and grape vines, was first brought into 
active use, in this country, by A. J. Downing, who, 
with all his great merits as a -writer on horticultural 
topics, has been the means of destroying many thou- 
sands of trees and vines by his directions for planting. 
When we use the expression " deep planting," we do 
not always mean setting the tree too deep at first, but 
we mean so digging and manuring the soil under the 
tree as to invite its roots immediately and deeply down 

(115) 



110 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

into the sub-soil. What we desire is, to keep the roots 
of trees and vines, as much as possible, near the surface. 
These opinions we first presented to the public, in an 
article on Dwarf Pear culture, in the Gardener's Monthly, 
for March, 1859, in reply to an article by Mr. E. Norton 
of Connecticut, in the Horticulturist. We noticed Mr. 
Norton's article because his planting was made upon the 
old Downing plan, which has been in general use, 
among amateurs at least. We quote such portions of 
the article alluded to, as bear immediately upon the 
question at issue. 

PEAR TREES ON QUINCE STOCK. 

BY WILLIAM BRIGHT. 

The article by Mr. E. Norton in the Horticulturist 
for December last, on the general failure of the Pear on 
Quince Stock, has induced me to present you with a 
few suggestions upon this subject which I think may 
prove useful to persons who may hereafter attempt the 
culture of the pear especially upon quince roots. Mr. 
Norton's remarks are very fair and apparently well con- 
sidered, the result of much personal experience and 
careful observation. But they contain within themselves, 
in my opinion, the evidence of erroneous views of pear 
culture, which are very common, and to which, in a 
great measure, the ill success of dwarf pears may be at- 
tributed. 

Mr. Norton says he planted four hundred quince- 



APPENDIX. 117 

rooted pear trees, thus : « Holes were dug tioo and-a- 
half fct-t deep by three or four wide, and filled with a 
carefully prepared compost, not too rich, but having all 
the ingredients prescribed by the experts." The man- 
ner in which the trees were set out, in my opinion, pre- 
sents the one great fatal error in the planting of fruit 
trees, which runs through all the works upon this sub- 
ject, and prevails in practice to an extent sufficient to 
account for at least half the misfortunes of fruit-growers. 
The great cardinal principle in all fruit culture, and 
in the case of the dwarf pear in particular, should be to 
keep the roots as near the surface of the earth as possi- 
ble, and not to invite them down to a depth of three feet, 
by the use of rich composts. They will go down rapidly 
enough, and far enough, be sure of that, if the ground 
is well ploughed; but we ought not to encourage them 
to go down ; and to this end, we should place the ma- 
nure upon the surface of the ground, rather than under 
them. The recent experiments in surface manuring, 
in England and America, prove conclusively that, for 
most purposes, this is really the best plan, and that there 
is very little loss of valuable material occasioned by the 
exposure of the manure to the atmosphere, whether de- 
composed or not. But there is even a stronger reason 
for the method of manuring which I recommend. If 
the roots of pear trees are induced to go a long way 
down into the subsoil, the buds and leaves will start in 
the spring before the earth is so far warmed by solar 
heat as to excite the roots into full action, and thus a 



118 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

heavy draft must be made upon the vitality of the tree, 
by the growing foliage, before the sap begins to ascend 
with sufficient rapidity to meet this demand. Again, 
in the fall, when the earth is warmer than the atmos- 
phere, the roots will continue too long in an active state, 
thus producing a succulent growth of wood late in the 
season, long after the whole tree ought to be in a state 
of repose, in order to ripen its wood. Leaf-blight in the 
first case, and frozen sap blight in the other, must be 
the inevitable consequence of such a condition of the 
tree. This is a principle of the highest consequence in 
the management of fruit trees, grape vines, &c. I plant 
all fruit trees as shallow as possible, having due regard 
to the natural requirements of the tree. 

Mr. Norton says he " filled" the holes dug for his 
trees with " carefully prepared compost, having all the 
ingredients prescribed by experts." Now, the common 
advice of the books on fruit culture is, to use for such 
composts sod, loam, raw and ground bones, ashes, plaster, 
slaughter-house offal, night-soil, stable manure, &c. Mr. 
Norton writes like an intelligent man, and therefore we 
will not suspect him of using a mass of strong rich nitro- 
genous matter and alkalies, sufficient to kill any tree at 
once; and, indeed, he declares that the compost was 
" not too rich." But if he placed under his trees "all 
the ingredients prescribed by experts," even in modera- 
tion, in my opinion, he committed a grave error. A 
transplanted fruit tree should never, I think, be placed 
either in or upon such a compost, or any other manur- 



APPENDIX. 119 

ing substance. The soil should be well pulverized, and 
the tree should be planted at the proper depth in the 
simple, natural, good top soil or loam, and covered with 
simple mild loam only. No manure should be placed 
under it, none over it (at first,) and none nearer than 
from four to six inches from it on the sides. 

" The transplanted tree," says Mr. Jacob Seneff, a 
highly successful pear-grower of this city, " is like a 
child, convalescent from some severe injury. It must 
not be fed at once with stimulants; it must have time 
to recover itself gradually by nature's own processes, 
before jo\i give it rich and abundant food." There is 
much good sense in this remark. To say nothing of the 
probability that you may destroy the tree by the excess 
of putrescent matter, and the powerful chemical action 
of your composts, when holes two and a half feet deep 
are filled with " all the ingredients prescribed by ex- 
perts," it is evident that a young transplanted tree needs 
no such material to help its growth for several months, 
or for the first year. The best compost for a newly 
planted tree is precisely that from which it was taken — 
the simple, natural loam, well enriched by previous cul- 
tivation. This is all it wants to assist it in getting 
started in its new residence ; this is nearly all it will 
bear without injury. 

The holes for pear trees on quince stocks, in my 
opinion, should be dug only deep enough to set the trea 
so that the union of the graft shall be covered an inch 
or so with the natural soil. Put no manure of any kind 



120 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

under or over them. You may, if you please, place a 
little compost in the open cavity, as you are filling it up, 
six inches from them, but even this is not necessary. 
You can feed them soon enough and amply enough by 
top-dressing at the proper time, and the manure will be 
all the better for going down in a state of solution, in- 
stead of being placed around the roots in the form of 
gross and powerful composts. 

The haste to manure transplanted fruit trees is not 
only a great injury, but an unnecessary and useless ex- 
pense ; and the cost of it, as advised by " the experts/' 
prevents a great many persons from engaging -in fruit 
culture. The very excellent and elegant treatise on 
Pear Culture by Mr. Thomas W. Field, the intelligent 
Secretary of the American Pomological Society, recom- 
mends a plan of trenching and manuring as a necessary 
preparation for the pear orchard, which, I think, will 
not only have a tendency to deter many persons from 
engaging in pear culture, but, if followed, will cause 
many who adopt it to form a very ill opinion of the 
dwarf pear. Mr. Field says, to attain the highest suc- 
cess, you must trench the whole ground three feet deep 
with the spade, mixing in the process the entire top soil 
and subsoil to that depth, and incorporating with the 
whole fifty two-horse loads of stable-manure per acre. 
Not only so, but he advises well-rotted stable-manure to 
be placed in the holes when the trees are planted, and 
more manure to be sprinkled in as the holes are filled 



APPENDIX. 121 

up, only taking care not to allow the manure to come in 
contact with the roots ! 

Now, to say nothing of the fact that stable-manure 
alone is not the best manure for fruit trees, the cost of 
trenching an acre of land upon this plan, he admits, will 
be $100. Fifty two-horse loads of stable-manure will 
cost, six miles from Philadelphia, from 8250 to $300. 
Four hundred good dwarf pear trees for an acre, with 
labor of planting, &c, will cost at least $200; thus 
making the first outlay for an acre of trees, from $550 to 
$600. This, with the value of the land, after-culture, 
and risk, is rather too high a figure to render the culture 
of dwarf pears, " for market purposes," an inviting specu- 
lation. 

Now, the truth is, a soil suitable for a pear orchard 
may be thoroughly prepared with the sub-soil plough, 
by ci-oss-ploughing, at about the cost of four ordinary 
ploughings and two harrowings. This will give a soil 
eighteen inches in depth, well pulverized, which is 
ample. No general manuring is required; and, if done, 
will be a great waste of means. In all other respects, 
except that noticed, Mr. Field's book is a good one, and 
exhibits, on the part of its author, not only much literary 
skill, but a highly refined and susceptible nature. 

For myself, I believe that the pear on the quince 
stock, if planted, as I have suggested, in the simple loam 
of a proper soil, well ploughed and sub-soiled, in a 
sheltered situation and proper exposure, and afterwards 
mulched, and top-dressed with proper manures, and 



122 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

properly pruned, and moderately fruited, will exhibit a 
degree of success far beyond that reported by Messrs. 
Allen, Norton and others, in all the middle and seaboard 
States of the Union, and will reward its cultivators with 
luscious and profitable harvests for a satisfactory number 
of years. 



For the sake of the cause, we must be excused for 
bringing T. W. Field, Esq., forward to testify in favor 
of our views on this subject. He has shown such a 
noble and generous spirit, in this matter, that we feel 
confident of his forgiveness. In the Gardener's Monthly 
for May, 1859, may be found an article from which we 
quote the following passages : 

PEAR CULTURE. 

BY T. W. FIELD, NEW YORK. 

The communication from Mr. Bright is conceived in 
so kindly a spirit of criticism, and written with so much 
intelligence, that I cannot allow him to retain a misap- 
prehension upon the subject, nor omit to confess that 
there is just grounds for his stricture upon the article 
on Trenching and Manuring in Pear Culture. 

I have not hitherto noticed any of the critiques upon 
my brochure, for several reasons ; principally because I 
was heartily tired of writing upon the subject, but occa- 



APPENDIX. ]23 

sionally, because they were ill-natured, or written by 
those who had little interest in the subject. To Mr. 
Bright let me say, that he has given me the first mis- 
givings upon the policy of what I had written, and that 
I confess his view to be the most philosophical regard- 
ing pear culture. 

Still I must do myself the justice to say, that the 
great expense I recommended was qualified in several 
places in the book, by stating that it was the extreme 
of high cultivation, and that I felt it necessary to ex- 
plain the processes by which the very highest result 
could be reached. 

On those wretchedly light soils which it has been my 
fortune to cultivate, much less labor would scarcely 
secure success. 



We have since learned that Mr. Field planted his 
pear trees on some city lots, which had been filled up 
with poor soil and rubbish, and that it was necessary 
for him to manure heavily, to bring the soil into a fer- 
tile condition. His own practice was no doubt correct, 
but the advice in his book was too much after the old 
Downing method, and was certainly not judicious. We 
are all too much in the habit of supposing that the 
practice which proves successful on any particular piece 
of soil, will be suited to all soils. We do not wish to 
punish Mr. Field for his want of reflection ; we only 



124 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

desire to put the Secretary of the American Pomologi- 
cal Society, where he has voluntarily placed himself, on 
our side, in this discussion. 

The Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, President of the 
American Pomological Society, after all his talk about 
" high culture," for the pear, still holds a position very 
similar to that which we advocate. We quote from the 
Keport of the Pomological Lectures at New Haven, 
published in the Gardener's Monthly. After Mr. 
Wilder's lecture on the pear — « A member called in 
question the propriety of < high culture' (as generally 
understood) for the pear on good soils, or the free ma- 
nuring of the pear tree, and especially dwarf pears, with 
stable manure, as might be supposed necessary from the 
remarks of Mr. Wilder. This, he contended, was not 
practised by the most successful cultivators where the 
soil is good. Mr. Wilder not being present, it was ex- 
plained by a friend, that he did not intend to say that 
the pezir should be freely manured with stable manure 
on good soils, as he does on the poor, thin, gravelly 
soil of Dorchester; and in proof of this, a passage was 
quoted from his lecture, as follows : l Surely it would be 
unwise to apply the same cultivation to the peach and 
the cherry as to the apple and the pear, or to treat any 
of these on new and fertile ground as in old and ex- 
hausted land/ 

"The subject of deep and shallow planting, especi- 
ally in its application to the pear, came up in this same 
discussion, and was pretty freely ventilated. The re- 



APPENDIX. 125 

suit of it was, a very general impression that pears, and 
especially the quince-rooted trees, have been planted too 
deeply, and that their roots should, if possible, be kept 
out of the subsoil. To do this, the pear must be budded 
low upon the quince stock, and the main root must be 
shortened as much as possible when set out; and in 
some instances it is better to make a slight concave 
mound around them with soil, (in order to cover the 
quince stock completely,) rather than to set them too 
deep in the ground. Much valuable information upon 
these topics was elicited from Mr. Barry, the distin- 
guished nurseryman of Rochester, N. Y., who was in 
favor of a moderate depth in planting the dwarf pear, 
(always keeping the quince root entirely covered,) and 
of manuring only with well decomposed muck and ma- 
nure compost, and not with fresh, highly stimulating 
stable manure. " 

P. Barry, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., in his lectures 
at New Haven, on the nursery and orchard manage- 
ment of fruit trees, presented views which well accord 
with our own, upon the subject of planting. We quote 
from the correspondence of the Gardener's Monthly : 

" Mr. Barry advocated the preparation of the soil for 
the nursery and orchard, by ploughing and subsoiling 
to the depth of eighteen inches, and cross-ploughing 
and subsoiling when necessary, (and under-draining, if 
needed,) as amply sufficient in good soils, without 
trenching and turning up the subsoil three feet deep, 
as some have recommended. He also opposed very 



126 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

deep planting, and the use of highly stimulating ma- 
nures, for pear trees on good soils. He manures his 
own pear trees with old compost of peat and manure 
every year, applying it in the fall." 

Thomas Meehan, Esq., the talented and highly 
practical editor of the Gardener's Monthly also en- 
dorses our views on the necessity of keeping the roots 
of fruit trees and vines as near the surface of the ground 
as possible, as will be seen by the remarks which he 
appended to our article on the shallow planting of 
trees, which we take the liberty to insert in this Ap- 
pendix. 

P. B. Mead, Esq., the present editor of the Horticul- 
turist, in a valuable article on the causes of pear blight, 
in the number for February, 1860, gives the result of 
fifteen years' experience in pear culture, proving that 
deep planting is fatal to the dwarf pear, while under 
what may be called surface planting, the trees were 
successful. 

Here, then, we have the President and Secretary of 
the American Pomological Society, the editors of the 
two leading horticultural journals in America, and the 
principal nurseryman in the Union, all expressing views 
similar to our own, on the evils of deep planting and 
heavy manuring for fruit trees; and we think we may 
therefore fairly claim, that if we are considered by some 
persons a little radical in our positions, we are not, at 
any rate, a positive pomological heretic. 

We now copy from the Gardener's Monthly, one of 



APPENDIX. 127 

our articles on shallow planting, as it has a direct bear- 
ing upon the principles advocated in this work ; and 
also an article from the same journal, on the inside and 
divided border, for the vinery, which being stated in 
words different from those employed in this essay, may 
assist the reader to comprehend the construction of the 
new border. 



Shallow Planting of Trees ; Merits of 
the Practice. 

BY WILLIAM BRIGHT. 



It has been our custom for many years, in planting 
*^ees of all kinds — evergreens, ornamental and fruit 
ti ees — to set them as near the surface of the ground as 
possible, often exciting much alarm for the safety of the 
tr ies in the minds of anxious amateurs, and much con- 
tempt on the part of incipient gardeners, for the seem- 
ing absurdity of the practice. But having somehow 
got the idea into our head that this method of planting 
trees was the true natural method, we obstinately per- 
severed in it, and now, after more than ten years' expe- 
rience in the practice, it has grown into a settled system 
with us, and we have begun to find out the reasons why 
it is really the best and most judicious plan of planting 
trees. 

In transplanting good specimens of evergreens, we 
usually endeavor to lift them with a ball of earth at- 
tached to the roots, fifteen or eighteen inches deep, and 
two feet or more in diameter. For such a tree, we make 
a hole only four inches deep, setting it, in fact almost 

(128) 



APPENDIX. 129 

on the surface of the ground. Then we throw about it 
one or two cart loads of good loam, working it up into 
a sort of mound, of a concave or crescent form, sloping 
off to a distance of six feet from the tree on all sides. 
After this we mulch the whole mound very heavily with 
leaf mould, or old litter, and keep it so mulched, winter 
and summer, for two years. The mulch must be heavy 
enough to keep the mound constantly moist in summer, 
and to keep out frost in winter. 

Deciduous trees we plant in the same way, as near 
the surface as possible, and rarely dig a hole over four 
to six inches deep. If the bottom roots are too long, 
we shorten them. In setting the tree, we spread out 
the roots on every side, so as to form a natural support 
to the tree, in the same way that the ropes or guys 
support a derrick. The same rule of planting we apply, 
as nearly as possible, to fruit trees, though it is often 
difficult to do this with some of the stock obtained from 
the common nurseries. A great mistake is made by 
some nurserymen in working pears on the quince; 
they almost always work them too high on the stem. 
If budded as low as they ought to be, (right down on 
the crown of the quince root,) they eould be planted 
shallow much more successfully ; it would enable us to 
cover the bud with two or three inches of soil, without 
being compelled to plunge the roots deep into the cold 
and sterile sub-soil. 

And here let us say, that in setting out deciduous 
ornamental trees, and standard fruit trees, after the 
9 



130 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

method here described, it is necessary to pay particular 
attention to the fact that the roots must be spread out 
horizontally, at right angles to the tree, no matter how 
tough they may be, or how difficult it may seem to do 
this. If the tree be set with the roots extending per- 
pendicularly downward, as they usually come from the 
nursery, it will be impossible to plant in shallow holes, 
as the tree would project too far out of the ground. 
The tree must not be set in the soil like a broom, but 
rather with its roots spread out precisely like a chicken's 
foot, with the toes extended at right angles from the 
leg. In this position it must be held firmly down till 
covered heavily with soil, when it will remain in 
place. The roots will then have the right direction for 
extending into the adjacent top soil. 

For all kinds of trees we like to have the soil tho- 
roughly and deeply ploughed and subsoiled ; but the 
method of planting here recommended, renders deep 
trenching, and heavy manuring, and underdraining, in 
a majority of instances, quite unnecessary. Indeed, if 
we were to plant a fruit garden and lawn for ourselves, 
to-day, we would rather have all the trees set only two 
to four inches deep, in the decently good loam of a 
tolerably porous soil, (say a fair corn-field,) which had 
been subsoiled fifteen inches deep, without a particle of 
manure, than to have a field trenched three feet deep, 
and manured at the rate of two hundred horse-loads of 
manure to the acre, if the trees were to be set in the 
usual way, in deep holes dug for the purpose, so as to 



APPENDIX. 131 

force or invite the main roots two or three feet down- 
wards into the ungeuial subsoil. 

Our chief reasons for this shallow planting are these : 
it is nature's own method of growing trees, and experi- 
ence has proved to us that man has never devised a 
better. In the forest and field, wherever trees grow 
naturally, you will always find the largest number of 
roots just under the surface of the earth, in the top 
soil. Few or no roots, except the tap roots, extend 
downwards very deeply, but in the forest they run 
along for an immense distance just under the mulching 
of leaves, which both feed and protect them. A com- 
mon loamy soil is only about six or eight inches deep, 
and this is all the material there really is in a field in a 
condition to furnish food for trees. . Now, if you set a 
tree very near the surface of the ground, the roots will 
extend rapidly, freely and widely in the good top soil, 
and there they find their appropriate nutriment. If the 
light is excluded by mulching, as is done in the forest 
by leaves, you have all the conditions necessary for 
chemical changes in the soil, and root feeding, viz : 
heat, moisture and darkness ; and no crude, cold, sour, 
uncongenial particles of matter to obstruct or poison the 
roots. Decomposition is constantly going on in the 
surface soil, and this is materially aided by plant life, 
which vegetable physiologists tell us acts like a ferment 
in dough, or like lime in muck, setting up chemical 
changes in the soil, which go on afterwards to an almost 
unlimited extent. 



132 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

A surface-planted tree is placed in its natural ele- 
ment, a well decomposed and rapidly changing soil. Its 
roots get plenty of air, and if well mulched, are always 
moist ; they become like the body and branches of the 
tree itself, accustomed to changes of temperature, and 
in the fall ripen and harden off their wood almost in 
the same way that a grape vine does its branches. But 
still the roots of a well mulched tree are never so liable 
to be affected by frost as even a deeply planted tree, 
for you will frequently find in the forest, under a heavy 
covering of leaves, in winter, that the frost has only 
penetrated to the depth of two inches, when in exposed 
ground the soil is frosted to the depth of four feet. 

A surface-planted tree, immediately fed with one or 
two cart-loads of good loam, placed around the cut ends 
of its roots, and well mulched, is in a much more favor- 
able condition to live and thrive, than a tree plunged 
deeply down into a cold, dank cistern of a hole, even if 
supplied with abundance of manure, and all sorts of 
special fertilizers. The surface-planted tree can and 
will send out its roots far and wide in the adjacent sur- 
face-soil ; but the deeply planted tree finds nothing con- 
genial or inviting in the soil around its roots, even if 
that soil be so well trenched or sub-soiled that it is able 
to penetrate it. A very large proportion of all the fail- 
ures which have been made in growing fruit trees, and 
especially the pear, are to be attributed, in our opinion, 
to deep planting and excessive manuring. Nature 
shows us plainly what to do : plant shallow, give all ma- 



APPENDIX. 133 

nures in light and frequent doses, and protect the roots 
from sun and frost by mulching. 

As evidence of the practical merit of the plan of sur 
face-planting which we advocate, we will take the li 
berty to refer to the magnificent specimens of Norway 
Spruce, Austrian Pine, and other evergreens, on the 
lawn of J. S. Lovering, Esq., of Oak Hill, on Old York 
Road, near Philadelphia, which we planted upon this 
system. These fine trees were about four feet, and four 
feet six inches high when planted. They were taken 
up with balls of earth about eighteen inches deep and 
two feet in diameter, and set on the surface of the lawn 
in cavities not more than three or four inches deep ; 
mounds were formed around them with good loam, and 
they were mulched for two years as before described. 
They never met with any check or injury ; the foliage 
never suffered in the least ) and they are now, when 
only six years planted, the finest of specimen trees, up- 
wards of eighteen and twenty feet high, the admiration 
of every beholder competent to judge of their excel- 
lence and beauty. 

The same may be said of the evergreens which we 
planted five years ago on the grounds of J. Swift, E«q., 
half a mile north of Mr. Lovering, on the York Road, 
in a very exposed, bleak situation. Here, where the 
white pine deeply planted, turned brown and lost its 
foliage in winter, the Austrians, shallow planted, not 
only endured the fierce north-westers witJ'out injury, 



134 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

but always made a fine growth, and retained, under all 
circumstances, their rich native luxuriance. 

There are other lawns in our immediate vicinity, 
where we have planted evergreens, and all sorts of deli- 
cate deciduous trees, in September and November, upon 
this system of shallow beds, with moun 's and mulch- 
ing, without losing one tree in a thousand, and with a 
degree of success in the growth and beauty of the trees, 
which rarely results from the common method of dig- 
ging holes. 

We have now partially under our care, a pear orchard 
of upwards of one thousand dwarf and standard trees, 
planted shallow and well mulched, one year ago, accord- 
ing to our advice and direction, without a particle of 
stable manure under or about them, with a loss of only 
two trees in a thousand ; and a finer pear orchard, of 
the same age and size, we feel assured, has never been 
seen in Pennsylvania. When this orchard gets into bear- 
ing, we intend to give a full description of our entire sys- 
tem of planting, manuring and pruning. We have, this 
fall, planted in this same orchard, nearly three thousand 
more pear trees, as shallow as possible, in no instance 
thrusting the spade, in digging the holes for them, into 
the sub-soil. The field has been thoroughly subsoiled, 
but not trenched or underdrained. The soil is, how- 
ever, a good one, and the subsoil is gravelly and porous. 

As to the propriety, and even necessity, of shallow 
planting in setting out trees, in all cases, to insure the 



APPENDIX. 135 

highest degree of success, we have no particle of doubt. 
We believe it is the only true and natural method. 

And now, ruy dear amateur fruit grower, if you have 
a poor, sickly, unthrifty tree, deeply planted, which 
looks stunted aud blighty, let me beg of you to try an 
experiment with it : — just dig the unfortunate tree out 
of the cold, rank grave in which you planted it, at 
once; lift ~ it up gently with a large ball of earth at- 
tached to its roots, and place it on the good, warm, 
sweet surface soil, in a cavity which you can make 
with your foot, say two inches deep ; throw around it a 
little good loam, mound up to it, and mulch it heavily, 
cut back the top freely in proportion to the loss of roots, 
and our word for it, you will see a change in the health 
and fruitfulness of your tree, in a few months, which 
will delight and astonish you. 

Sub-soil ploughing, shallow planting, heavy mulch- 
ing and surface manuring are the cardinal points in 
fruit culture. Under-draining may sometimes be ne- 
cessary in heavy, wet soils, but with shallow planting, 
this expense, and also that of trenching, may be often 
avoided. 

The editoi of the Gardenei J s Monthly added the 
following note : — 

" We believe one of the first, if not the very first 
article we ever wrote, at the suggestion of Mr. A. J. 
Downing, for his ' Horticulturist,' many years ago, was 



136 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

on the same subject, and presenting similar views as 
we have now the pleasure of inserting from the pen 
of Mr. Bright, and it is therefore needless to say how 
cordially we agree with him. We are at all times 
pleased to hear from Mr. Bright on any subject." 



New method of Constructing Vineriea 

DETACHED AND DIVIDED BORDERS, ENTIRELY 
INSIDE THE HOUSE. 

BY WILLIAM BRIGHT. 



We have for a long time been of opinion that the 
common method of constructing vineries, with the bor- 
der partly outside of the house, was not only unneces- 
sary but absolutely injurious to the health and fruiting 
capacity of the vines. The success which we have at- 
tained in growing grapes in eleven inch pots, producing 
a large crop of the finest fruit without allowing the 
roots to extend beyond the limits of the pot, convinced 
us that borders of the size usually made were quite un- 
necessary. A moment's reflection upon the position of 
a vine, with part of its roots and all its wood in a hot- 
house, and its main roots out of doors, would suffice to 
impress any one at all familiar with grape culture, with 
the evident absurdity of the practice. Those who have 
had any experience in the matter, know how much we 
are at the mercy of the elements when vines are so 
planted, how little we can control the heat or moisture 
of the border, and what sad attacks the frost makes 

(137) 



138 BRIGHT ON CxRAPE CULTURE. 

upon the roots of the vines after all our care in mulch- 
ing, &c. 

To break away from a custom, so hoary and re- 
verend as this, is almost impossible ; but we determined 
to do it, and now present for the consideration of gar- 
deners a vinery constructed with the border not only 
entirely inside the house, but detached from the front 
wall by an air chamber four inches wide, separated 
also from the bottom soil by concrete and air cham- 
bers, and from the earth inside the house by similar 
air chambers, and then divided into sections two feet 
wide by brick work, so that the roots of one vine can- 
not mingle with the others, but each must remain as 
separate and distinct as if grown in a pot. This we 
call a detached and divided inside border, and we might 
add a suspended border, also, for the border is abso- 
lutely suspended in air, and nowhere do the sides of 
the border touch the adjacent soil or wall of the house. 
Under this arrangement, we attain a perfect drainage, 
and have entire control over the temperature and mois- 
ture of the border, and we think it will work admirably 
in practice. 

We have just built a cold vinery on this plan, one 
hundred feet long, with a fixed roof, and a new method 
of ventilation, by means of numerous front and back 
shutters, which in our vanity we are pleased to think 
is a model of cheapness, beauty, and efficient working 
capacity. The house is a lean-to, seventeen leet wide, 
built in the best manner, and cost, with a back wall of 



APPENDIX. lot) 

concrete, sixteen inches thick, solid as stone, onJy about 
$450. 

Without illustrations we can scarcely give a working 
plan of the house, but we may present such a descrip- 
tion of the border as will serve to convey a pretty good 
idea of it. 

The box or pit, into which the soil is placed, is con- 
structed of brick-work, resting upon a concrete bottom. 
This concrete bottom is so bevelled as to throw the 
drainage into a channel constructed on one side, to 
carry off excess of water. Bricks are then set on edge, 
eight and a half inches apart, running in lines from 
the front of the house towards the back, and commenc- 
ing four inches from the front wall, forming a set of 
piers, as it were, for the bottom of the pit to rest upon, 
and also forming tubes, or air chambers under the pit, 
for air to pass freely. The bottom of the pit is now 
laid with dry brick-work upon these lines or piers of 
brick, set on edge, being just the length of one brick 
apart. As soon as the bottom of the pit was thus laid, 
we built a wall of brick four inches thick, (the width of 
one brick,) four inches from the front wall of the house, 
to the height of two feet. We then divided the pit 
into sections of two feet, by erecting walls of brick set 
on edge, from the front to the back of the pit, of the 
same height as the front wall, making fifty sections or 
divisions in one hundred feet. After this, we finished 
the inside of the pit with boards, leaving a passage of 
four inches open to the air chambers below, so that the 



140 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE 

atmosphere of the house may circulate entirely under 
the border without obstruction. 

. This completes the detached and divided border. It 
consists, in fact, of a huge brick pit, separated from the 
front, bottom, and inside of the house by air chambers 
four inches wide, and divided into sections, or large 
pots or tubs, by brick walls. Each section or division 
is two feet wide, three feet long, and two feet deep, and 
will contain soil enough to grow and fruit a vine fifteen 
feet long, (with the addition of manures and special 
fertilizers, by top-dressing,) for many years. 

Now what are the advantages of such a border ? We 
answer, the roots of the vines are placed entirely beyond 
the reach of frost and rain ; and we have the most per- 
fect control over the temperature and moisture of the 
whole border, at top and bottom. The border does not 
even touch the front wall of the house, which in cold 
weather must be a constant conductor of heat away from 
the border, doing immense mischief, especially in a 
forcing house. We can keep the border perfectly dry 
as long as we please in the spring, and we can dry it off 
as soon and as completely as we please in the fall. The 
bottom of the border must always have an atmosphere 
about it of the same temperature as the top-soil, or 
nearly so. We avoid the expense and care of a large 
border, which we are convinced is not only entirely un- 
necessary, but often highly injurious to the health and 
fruitfulness of the vines. 

Again, with regard to the divisions into sections or 



APPENDIX. 141 

large pots, we can discover numerous and important ad 
vantages. It enables us to grow, in immediate proxi- 
mity, vines of different degrees of vigor, which cannot 
be so grown in a common border, where the roots min- 
gle together, without injury to the weaker kinds. It 
gives us an opportunity to water or to stimulate one 
vine without affecting another, or to withhold water 
from one without diminishing the growth of its neigh- 
bor. It permits us to try experiments with different 
fertilizing agents on single vines, and thus much may 
be learned, by comparison, of the value of different fer- 
tilizers, which cannot be done in a common border, 
with the same ease and precision. In the divided bor- 
der, we can take out and put in vines at pleasure, with- 
out injury to the roots of other vines, and without 
breaking up a large portion of the border. If any vine 
proves too weak, or of a poor quality, we may remove it 
at once, and replace it with another vine of a better 
character, with the greatest ease, and the young vine so 
introduced, having a section of the pit all to itself, will 
receive no check from the roots of other vines. This is 
an important advantage. There is no reason why we 
should be so much hampered by the impossibility of 
changing the stock of a vinery, without grafting, in- 
arching, &c. By the plan here described, all this diffi- 
culty is avoided, and we may change the vines in a 
house, as easily as we change the stock in our pots ; re- 
moving unprofitable vines, and substituting fresh ones, 
well grown, from pots, ready for fruiting in a single 



142 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

year, whenever we choose, without difficulty, or without 
injury to the balance of the house. 

This border, you will say, remains to be tried. This 
is true ; but if we can fruit a vine with success and pro- 
fit in an eleven inch pot, containing only about half a 
cubic foot of soil, can we not fruit a longer cane as suc- 
cessfully in twelve or fifteen cubic feet of soil, in the 
detached border ? 

Then, again, this border may easily be extended, if 
found necessary, to six feet or more long, with very 
little trouble and expense, though we doubt whether 
this will be required for many years. Or, the border 
may be made wider at first. But we think we prefer to 
have the inside of the house for other purposes, (at 
least for a year or two,) say for a propagating bed, or 
for a row of figs, or anything else you please. We 
shall of course expect to top-dress the border very freely 
with liquid manure, and special fertilizers; and we 
much prefer this method of growing grapes, where 
every part of the culture is under perfect control, to 
having large, cumbrous, sodden, sour, useless borders, 
exposed to rain and frost, over which we have little or 
no control. 

The house in question, which we have just complet- 
ed, is somewhat new in its construction, in other re- 
spects than those alluded to. It is set upon a terrace 
two feet high, to prevent it from looking too low, but 
the front sash and ventilator is only eighteen inches 
wide, and hence the roof is brought within two feet of 



APPENDIX. 143 

the border, and the house is nowhere more than six 
feet and a half high, and has such a pitch to the roof 
that the grapes, when formed, must hang down, inside 
of the house, under and clear of the foliage, which, we 
think, adds much to the beauty of the sight which a 
house in full fruiting condition exhibits to the spec- 
tator. 



Special Manures for the Grape. 



BRIGHT' S GRAPE FERTILIZER. 

The grape delights, most of all, in a limestone soil. 
The best wine grapes grown in Europe, have been pro- 
duced on artificial terraces or borders, on the hill-side 
ledges of limestone rocks, Lime is, indeed, required 
in abundance by almost all fruit producing plants and 
trees. A good method of using lime, where it is not 
sufficiently abundant in the soil, is to apply twenty or 
thirty bushels annually per acre, and it is more efficient 
if this quantity be distributed in small portions of say 
three to five bushels at a time, before rain, at intervals 
of several weeks, throughout the year. Or, it may be 
used upon sod and peat, when preparing composts, be- 
fore the addition of stable manure, or other ammoniacal 
substances. 

The next special manure required by the grape is 
ammonia, or nitrogenous matter. The grape is gener- 
ally declared to be a gross feeder ; it is thought to re- 
quire a large amount of rich manure. This idea is in 
the main correct, but not to the extent that was formerly 
supposed. The old plan of manuring grape borders, 

10 (145) 



146 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

and arbors, by burying the carcasses of animals', slaughter- 
house offal, hog manure, and other material of a similar 
character under the roots of vines, is now, we presume 
abandoned by all intelligent persons who have kept pace 
with tha progress in horticulture. Even bone-dust is 
not now placed beneath the roots, though it may be, to 
some extent, mixed with the soil of borders and vine- 
yards. But as to nitrogenous compounds, stable manure, 
slaughter-house offal, guano, &c, it is better that they 
should not be mixed largely with the soil, in planting a 
vineyard, unless it be very poor, nor indeed should they 
be thus applied around or beneath the roots of any fruit- 
bearing plant or tree, at the time of planting. 

The grape requires ammonia, or ammoniacal manures, 
such as we have mentioned, but they should be applied 
late in the fall in the vineyard, or in early spring, as we 
have directed for pot culture. You may manure your 
vineyard annually, in the fall, as you would a field of 
wheat, and fork it into the soil ; or you may mix the 
ammoniacal substance in your special compost, as we 
have done in the Grape Fertilizer. 

After ammonia, comes phosphoric acid, or phosphate 
of lime, as a special manure for the grape. This should 
be, not in the form of crude bones, or bone-earth, or 
bone-dust, but in the form of soluble super-phosphate of 
lime. Vast sums of money have been wasted by the 
application of crude bones and bone-dust to vineyards. 
Even finely ground bones will scarcely decompose and 
yield up their phosphoric acid to the grape roots in the 



APPENDIX. 147 

life-time of man, while in the soluble form the valuable 
constituent of bones, the phosphoric acid, becomes en- 
tirely available the first season. 

The fourth important inorganic element of the grape 
vine and its fruit, is potash, in various combinations, as 
silicate of potash, nitrate of potash, tartrate of potash, 
carbonate of potash, &c. Potash should, we presume, 
be placed first and highest on the list, and the others 
in the inverse order as noticed, viz : first potash, then 
phosphoric acid, ammonia, lime. Soda, or soda ash, 
may perhaps in some instances, serve the purpose of 
potash, though it does not enter largely into the com- 
position of the vine or the grape. 

The acids also play an important part in the forma- 
tion of the grape, such as the tartaric, malic,, carbonic, 
silicic, nitric, sulphuric and tannic acids. 

The starchy and saccharine elements and compounds, 
produced by the bases and acids, have also to be con- 
sidered in our views of grape culture. 

Lime and potash enter largely into the composition 
of the wood, ammonia stimulates the growth of foliage, 
the phosphoric acid promotes the tendency to fruit, 
potash develops fruit juices, carbonic and tartaric acids 
elaborate sweetness and rich vinous flavor, and all these 
substances, and more which it is unnecessary to name, 
as they are found in all good soils, under the combined 
influence of light, heat, and moisture, produce the per- 
fect fruit. 

To instruct the public at large as to the best method 



148 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

of obtaining and using all these necessary constituents 
of the grape, in a brief hand-book like this, has seemed 
to us almost a hopeless task. It would require at least 
a complete elementary treatise on the chemistry of the 
substances named, which few would read, unless pre- 
viously instructed in chemistry, and still fewer would 
understand, or attempt to follow. There is nothing of 
which the purely practical man is more justly doubtful 
than his ability even to use potash, or any other simple 
chemical agent, with safety and success in the prepara- 
tion of manure. 

With these views, and by the urgent request of 
numerous friends, we have prepared a Grape Fertilizer 
for popular use, containing all the ingredients necessary 
to grow and fruit the grape, in pots, in the hot-house, 
in the garden, upon the trellis, and in the vineyard : 
precisely that compost or combination of agents, which 
we have ourselves so successfully employed for years in 
the growing of grapes, only more perfectly made, and 
more scientifically combined, than we have usually made 
it for our own use. 

People who have visited our grapery have often asked 
us " What manures do you use to make your grapes 
grow so finely, and fruit so heavily V It was impossi- 
ble to answer this question within the limits of a brief 
conversation, and hence many have thought us very 
secret and selfish in our grape culture. This is not so. 
We have been willing to explain the whole art, and here 
publish it ; but we are quite convinced, that unless the 



APPENDIX. 149 

special manures required by the grape are provided in 
a convenient and perfect form, few persons among the 
thousands who may read this work, would be able to 
attain the highest degree of success in grape culture. 

Stable manure, or even slaughter-house manure, alone, 
will not grow and perfect the best fruit, nor the best 
crop, although it may produce immense canes. Wff 
advise the use of some stable manure, or other rich 
manure of like character, or of guano ; but we feel as- 
sured that in really good soil a first rate crop of fine 
grapes may be produced without any stable manure, 
guano, or other stimulating manure whatever, by the 
use of the chemical elements of the grape above des- 
cribed, which form the ingredients of our fertilizer. 
Most persons have no doubt noticed that grape vines 
and fruit trees, in good soil, usually grow y that is in- 
crease in size, and length of branches, and abundance 
of foliage, well enough, without stable or other common 
manure, — but they don't fruit. Now soap suds, con- 
taining carbonic acid and potash, applied to an old un- 
fruitful vine, or tree, will often cause it to fruit abund- 
antly. The vine may obtain carbonic acid, and ammonia, 
from the atmosphere, and may grow finely, but if the 
inorganic or chemical substances required to produce 
fruit, be exhausted from the soil, they can only be sup- 
plied by the application of compounds containing them. 

The Grape Fertilizer which we present to the public, 
is intended chieflj for popular use. The scientific man 
will of course kuow what chemical agents to use, in 



150 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

grape culture, and how to use them, and will not come 
to us for instruction, though he may not decline a hint 
from us, when sustained by successful practice. To the 
gentleman, however, who does not study horticulture, 
and whose gardener does not understand chemistry, we 
believe a well prepared Grape Fertilizer, at a low price, 
adapted to the grapery and trellis, will prove a valu- 
able acquisition, as it may save him much time, expense, 
and probably serious failure in the efforts of his gardener 
to attain a high point in grape culture. To the amateur 
grape-grower, in small gardens and vineyards, and to 
the owner of a single vine or arbor of vines, it will be 
exceedingly useful and convenient. We have long had 
special manures for corn and wheat, and why not for 
grapes ? The latter is indeed more imperatively de- 
manded than the former, because the art of selecting 
and mixing the necessary ingredients is less generally 
known, and hence greater mistakes are liable to be made 
in any attempts to accomplish it. 

The Grape Fertilizer which we have prepared, con- 
tains all the ingredients necessary to grow and fruit the 
grape, in abundance, except carbonic acid, or carbona- 
ceous matter. Well rotted sod, peat sweetened with 
lime, or rotted straw, and well rotted stable manure will 
supply carbon. 

The Grape Fertilizer contains ammonia, phosphoric 
acid, potash, salts of lime and soda, iron, &c, &c, all 
the inorganic elements of vine and fruit, in proper com- 
bination with vegetable acids, especially the tartaric acid. 



APPENDIX. 151 

Tartaric Acid we have found, in a free state, the 
most useful of all the special manures for the grape. 
The fact that the lees of wine, or grape juice, deposits 
large quantities of tartaric acid, or bi-tartrate of potash, 
(cream of tartar,) has long been known to the world, and 
yet grape growers have for centuries been blind to the 
importance of this substance in grape culture. Not till 
after we had experimented with the use of tartaric acid, 
and tartrate of potash, could we feel certain that we had 
the culture and fruiting of the grape perfectly under 
our control. Sometimes we succeeded, and sometimes 
we failed, nor could we discover the cause. One day, 
in reading some scientific work, our attention was called 
to the fact, that nearly all the cream of tartar of com- 
merce, was obtained from the lees of wine. New light 
at once broke into our mind. Here, it was evident, was 
an important acid, necessary to the perfection of the 
grape, entirely overlooked. We commenced experi- 
menting at once, with tartaric acid, adding it to our 
compost heaps and using it in a variety of ways and a 
variety of combinations. At last we hit upon the right 
union with potash and other substances, and we have 
never since been at loss to fruit a healthy vine as heavily 
as it could bear. In fact, our vines fruited too heavily, 
and we immediately commenced the dwarfing system, 
and the growing of larger bunches of finer quality, 
which is the truest and highest point of the art. 

Our Grape Fertilizer is an ammoniated compound of 
phosphate and tartrate of potash and lime, or more pro 



152 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

perly speaking it is a compound of ammonia and super- 
phosphate of lime, and tartrate of potash, in a form 
sufficiently soluble to meet the wants of the grape vine. 
If required, it will all be available in a single season, 
but if not taken up by the vines, it will remain in any 
good soil for years, until it is taken up by plants, and 
cannot be washed out by rains, or evaporated by heat. 
It is ready for use, yet enduring as the earth itself. 
Being manufactured on a large scale, it can be sold 
cheaper than it can be made by any single individual 
purchasing the ingredients in small quantities and work- 
ing without proper apparatus, even if he possess the re- 
quisite scientific skill to make the proper combinations. 
We believe it will be of immense service to grape 
growers, and save them a vast amount of trouble, ex- 
pense and disappointment, in their efforts to grow the 
grape by the use of ordinary manures. 

The Grape Fertilizer may be applied to the vine in 
pots, in the field or garden, as a top dressing, in the 
fall, after the vine has ceased growing, in the spring, 
and during the summer when undergoing the stoning 
process when the fruit ceases to swell for a time, and in 
addition to growing a fine crop of grapes, it will perfect 
the fruit a week or two earlier than if not so fertilized. 

The Grape Fertilizer will be furnished in large and 
small packages, adapted to the wants of grape growers, 
and detailed directions will accompany each package as 
to method of using, quantity per acre, or per vine. 



Method of applying our Grape 
Fertilizer. 



The Grape Fertilizer which we present to the public 
should be applied to vines frequently, at various seasons 
of the year, in small quantities, as parts of it are volatile 
and might be lost before being taken up by the roots, if 
the whole quantity intended for one season were applied 
all at once. 

As soon as the foliage falls off in autumn, the vines 
should receive a dressing of fertilizing agents, in order 
that these substances may pass into the soil and enter 
into chemical combination with its particles during the 
winter, and promote new chemical conditions in the soil 
itself. When the vines start in the spring, a fresh 
dressing should be given, and during the spring, while 
the rain is falling freely, slight sprinklings of Fertilizer 
should be frequently thrown around the roots, to be 
dissolved and carried into the soil at once by the water. 
And again, in summer, when the fruit is stoning, and 
the vines seem to be in a partial state of rest, a free 
dose of Fertilizer should be given during rainy weather, 
to assist in perfecting the grapes. 

(153) 



154 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 

To a poor soil, in which there is a scanty supply of 
the salts of lime and potash, and but little ammonia or 
phosphoric acid, the Fertilizer may be applied at the rate 
of one ton per acre, the first season, and say, six hun- 
dred pounds the second and following seasons, though 
three hundred pounds on a first rate soil will show a 
marked and profitable effect. For single vines, or vines 
on arbors, from a peck to a bushel may be applied in a 
season, to each vine, or even two bushels may be used 
on old vines which have had but little special manure 
for many years, if it be widely spread over the surface 
of the ground, say upon a space ten or fifteen feet square 
and carefully worked into the top soil, in divided quan- 
tities, at different seasons of the year, as before directed. 
Indeed, if any one should wish to try the experiment, 
upon a large old vine, we think that as much as four or 
six bushels might be applied to a single old vine, of 
large size, with safety, especially if mixed for two or 
three weeks with one or two cart-loads of muck or wet 
sod from an old meadow, and turned two or three times 
before using it. The caustic ingredients of the Fertilizer 
would thus be partially neutralized by the muck or sod, 
and also absorbed, so that the action of its ingredients 
would not be expended all at once, or too speedily upon 
the vine. All large applications of Fertilizer for the 
restoration of old vines, should of course be made late 
in the fall, and in early spring, and not during the 
growing season. 

For pot vines of one year old or less, only slight 



APPENDIX. 155 

sprinklings will be required, say a pint or so in a season. 
Two year old and fruiting vines may be top-dressed with 
one or two quarts during the year, the old material 
being removed occasionally and fresh applied, as may 
seem to be required. The heaviest dressings should be 
made late in the fall, and the first thing in the spring 
before the vines have started. It will always be well to 
apply to the pots a little fresh soil before giving the 
Fertilizer, and this again may be covered with soil, or 
leaf mould, with much advantage. So in making appli- 
cations of Fertilizer to out of door vines, a mulching or 
dressing of good soil or leaf mould over the special 
manure will be highly useful. 

Our Fertilizer is quite as powerful as guano in respect 
to the quantity and value of its ingredients, but it is 
not so volatile, soluble, or caustic, and hence acts more 
slowly, lasts lon-ger, and is not so dangerous to plants. 
It contains all the special manures required by the grape 
for the growth of wood and the production of fruit, and 
will be found exceedingly convenient for those who do 
not care to trouble themselves about making composts 
of crude and offensive substances in order to obtain the 
necessary fertilizing agents. 



WILLIAM BRIGHT, 

LOGAN NURSERY, PHILADELPHIA, 5 

LANDSCAPE GARDENER, CONTRACTING PLANTER, 

AND NURSERYMAN. 



[The Logan Nursery is situated on the Old York Road, about three- 
quarters of a mile from Fisher's Lane Station, on the Germantown Kail- 
road, and about the same distance above the Rising Sun village.] 



Mr. Bright devotes himself chiefly to the propagation of 
foreign and native grapes, the cultivation of choice ever- 
greens, and other ornamental trees and shrubs, and to the 
laying out and planting of cottage and villa lots, and 
fruit gardens. He also superintends the construction of 
vineries and borders, after his improved method. 



GEAPE VINES. 

Every known, proved, good variety of foreign grape may 
be found at the Logan Nursery, suitable for planting in the 
vinery, and for pot culture. Mr. Bright having recently 
visited Europe, has obtained all the new grapes of value, and 
has now an unrivalled collection of nearly one hundred va- 
rieties of the best foreign grapes, which he will soon be 
able to exhibit growing in his own nouses. 

He can also supply all the new native grapes, of the best 
quality, grown from layers, or in pots, in any quantity, at 
the lowest market rates. 

ORNAMENTAL TREES AND SHRUBS. 

Here may be seen a fine collection of the rarest ornamen- 
tal trees and flowering shrubs, especially the proved 
hardy kinds, for planting lawns and cottage lots. Any 
new plant or tree, not in the collection, will be furnished at 
short notice. 

FRUIT TREES. 

Mr. Bright will furnish (and attend to the planting, if de- 
sired,) all the choicest varieties of native and foreign 
fruit trees, for orchards or fruit gardens ; and he is able 
to show numerous gardens planted after his method, in his 
immediate vicinity, where the dwarf pear and other fruit 
trees are unusually thrifty and successful. 

SMALL FRUITS, STRAWBERRIES, ETC. 

All the choicest varieties of raspberries, strawberries, 
blackberries, &c, are grown at the Logan Nursery, or on 
grounds under the care of Mr. Bright, and can be lumlshed. 
!s in any quantity, and at reasonable prices. 



| EVERGREENS. f 

7 Tbe stock of evergreens is large and fine. The cultiva- 7 

\ tion of evergreens at the Logan Nursery is in fact made a \ 

specialty. The trees are all grown as specimens, pruned 

into elegant shape, and prepared for planting by repeated 

removals, root pruning, &c. 

Mr. Bright now offers, at reasonable prices, a large assort- 
ment of beautiful evergreens, such as 

Norway Spruce — from two to ten feet high, grown as 
perfect specimens. 

Scotch Firs — of a variety of sizes. 

Austrian Pines — very beautiful and healthy. 

Silver Firs — fine specimens. 

White Pines — beautiful, and truly American trees. 

Irish Junipers — on one stem, very choice. 

Swedish Junipers — of peculiar beauty. 

Scaled Juniper, or Squamata— rare and fine. 

American Arbor Vitee — for hedges, all sizes. 

Golden Arbor VitSB — the most beautiful of all the 
Arbor Vitse, and fine specimens. 

Mr. Bright, in planting Evergreens, will attend to the bu- 
siness in person, and give any aid that may be desired with 
regard to the setting of trees, in reference to grouping and 
picturesque effect, as well as to the successful growth and 
future health of the plants, such as manuring, mulching, 
winter protection, &c. 

Gentlemen desirous of ornamenting cottage and villa lots, 
are invited to visit the Logan Nursery, and examine the 
stock of Evergreens. 

Mr. Bright feels assured that he can give a degree of satis- 
faction in this branch of his profession, which will be highly 
gratifying to gentlemen of taste, and save them years of 
time, mortification, and pecuniary loss. 

SPECIMEN VINERY, VINEYARD, ETC. 

Gentlemen visiting the Logan Nursery, may see grapes 
grown in pots, in the vinery, and in the vineyard, upon his 
system of pruning; also his new inside, divided border, for 
the vinery, new methods of ventilation, &c. ; and he cordi- 
ally invites persons really interested in such matters, to call 
and examine these things for themselves. 

Jg^° Bright's Grape Fertilizer is sold in casks or 
bags, at $45 per ton, or 2\ cts. per lb., by the single bag. 

City Depot for the Fertilizer, at the Agricultural Ware- 
house of Graham, Emlen & Passmore, No. 627 Market St., 
| Philadelphia. | 












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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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